


Who Tells Our Stories

by lifeofsnark



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: And Sansa 2.0 is TAKING NO SHIT, Cunnilingus, F/M, Fingering, Fingering in the forest, He tells her about Jon and the wights, Including bonding over their shared search for a satisfactory identity, Jaime and Arya get a happy ending, Jaime and Arya meet on the Kingsroad after Arya kills the Freys, Jaime kills Cersei, Jaime's like "You're going the wrong way!", Like, NaNoWriMo 2018, Plot tags first, Rough fucking, SEX TAGS:, Season 8 speculation, So they both ride north, There are hijinks along the way, They get to Winterfell, he calls her "wolf-girl" and "pup" and it's ADORABLE, lots of prophecies, no surprise there, p in v, pretty damn rough it's these two, the dead shows up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-08-29 10:45:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 59,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16742545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lifeofsnark/pseuds/lifeofsnark
Summary: Seasons 7/8 canonverse AU, with the backstory drawing heavily on the books.After bringing the Gift to House Frey, Arya rides south to kill the queen. On the road she meets the Kingslayer riding north in stolen black armor and with one fewer hands than he’d had when last she’d seen him four years previously. She tells him that she’s off to kill the Queen; he tells her he rides north to fight an army of the dead alongside her brother Jon.They agree to ride north together, and what happens next is a story of two broken people finding themselves and each other. Prophecies are fulfilled, treaties are brokered, and sex is had.Excerpt:“How did you recognize me?” she demanded. “And why are you out here alone?”“I could ask you the same things,” said Jaime, rummaging in his saddlebag. He came up with a few strips of dried meat, and he tossed one to Arya.Arya shrugged. “That’s easy: you still look like a Lannister, even if you aren’t dressed like one. I’m out here alone because that’s how I’ve survived, and besides: who would help me kill the queen?”“Me, on the right day,” said Jaime in an offhand way.





	1. Overture/A Chance Meeting

**OVERTURE:**

 

In the shadowy kitchens beneath the Red Keep Jaime Lannister rubbed sand and ashes into the pommel of his sword. As much as he’d have liked to leave it behind, he couldn’t in good conscience throw away a weapon supposedly capable of killing the dead. Was it killing? Was something dead able to die again?

 

 _A question for the Greyjoys_ , Jaime thought, turning the sword this way and that, watching to see where it would catch the light. It felt right, as so few things did, to take this sword North. The rippling Valyrian steel had been stolen from the Starks by his father; it was theirs more than his. It didn’t matter that the hilt was gold, that the thing had been named by Jaime’s cunt of a bastard son. The blade held the ice of the north and had never come easily to Jaime’s hand.

 

When the hilt of the sword was nearly as dark as the blade Jaime felt his task was complete. He strapped the sword to his side (the wrong side, it would always feel wrong) and stole down into the cellar. Dried meat hung from the rafters between hams and sides of venison, and Jaime took that, a block of hard cheese, and dried apples. From the pantry he took coarse brown rolls and, on impulse, a skin of fine wine.

 

His bounty went into the saddlebag slung over Jaime’s right shoulder, and then he was striding out into the pale, weak light of an early-winter dawn. In stolen black armour and boiled leather Jaime padded across the familiar cobbles of the Red Keep. He’d walked this path a thousand times on a thousand mornings. Many times he’d slipped out of Cersei’s bed, buckled on his white Kingsguard cloak, and had reported for training with an easy conscience and a bounce in his step.

 

Jaime wasn’t bouncing now. He wasn’t wearing the white of the Kingsguard or the crimson of Lannister. He was in black- he’d worn white for the act that had damned him in the eyes of all who heard his name. He’d wear black for the only decent act he had left to do.

 

He chose a tall, sturdy black gelding known for endurance and saddled him. He stole the saddle and bridle as well, because (he’d only now realized) everything he owned carried the Lannister Lion or crest of the Kingsguard. He’d spend his life as Tywin’s son, Cersei’s twin, the Kingslayer.

 

For the first time since he’d been made Kingsguard, Jaime rode out of the Red Keep with no insignias, no orders, and no companions. Alone he traveled through the waking streets, and alone he watched the winter’s first snowflake land on his gold hand and quickly melt. For the thinnest fraction of a second Jaime thought he could feel the cool, gentle brush of the snowflake against his skin.

 

The hand. It had been Cersei’s idea, meant to cover his repulsive deformity, the thing that had made him imperfect in his lover’s eyes. Now Jaime tugged on a leather cover, hoping to make it as many miles as he could before he was recognized.

 

Without titles, without illusions, and without much hope Jaime Lannister cantered north. He had exactly one thing left that could be called his own: his future.

 

~~~

 

A girl floated in a dark fountain of truth and patience. It was calm in the fountain, endless and cool. It was easy to ignore the occasional bubble of fear or rage that would float to the surface. Besides, everyone knew it was safest to drink from moving water.

 

The girl waited patiently by the old man’s side. So many of his family had already received the Gift, and yet the Many Faced god had continually passed him over, this gnarled and wrinkled man, this proud little lord in his hole.

 

The girl noticed the bubble of loathing floating in the calm pool of truth and popped it. Death didn’t love or hate. He came for all, one by one, bringing his Gift to the flowers of the field and the beasts of the land and sea. So would she be: a girl would be the autumn coming for the harvest, the arrow coming for the doe.

 

The old man chewed his pie, working fitfully with his remaining teeth. “Where are my sons?” he groused.

 

“Here, my lord,” said the girl.

 

The old man squinted: his eyes had gone as well. Truly, death _would_ be a Gift.

 

“I don’t see them,” he said, always suspecting women of tricks and stupidity.

 

A girl took a slow breath. Death was neither male nor female, old nor young. “Here, my lord,” she said, gesturing to his portion of hot water crust pie. The crust… had been tricky. The girl had used up most of the tender cuts of meat in her first few experiments.

 

“What?” snapped the old man.

 

The girl peeled back the top layer of crust to reveal the finger (complete with dirty fingernail, did men _never_ wash?) within the old man’s luncheon. “ _Here,_ my lord,” said the girl, pride leaching into her voice.

 

Death didn’t take pride in his job, and the girl’s face had begun to itch. She felt for the little… seam, the silvery thread that connected the girl to the face she wore. It was easy to feel now, and smoothly, happily the girl peeled off the face of the serving girl.

 

Arya Stark-ness rushed in to fill the nothingness, the internal dark fountain being replaced by a wellspring of rage so deep and hot it might have been forged in the heart of Old Valyria. Arya shivered at the sensation, her grin wide and wolfish. “I want you to know,” she told Old Walder, “That winter came for House Frey. My name is Arya, and I want you to know that you’ll die with a Stark smiling down at you.”

 

When the blood hit her cheek, hot and sticky, she smiled.

 

The next day, when Arya rode out of the keep on a stolen horse, her saddlebags full of food, the wailing of women rung sweetly in her ears.

 

 

**CHAPTER ONE: A CHANCE MEETING**

Arya smelled the smoke of the campfire before she saw it. Darkness came early now, something she’d never experienced, but she knew it was winter tightening its grip on the kingdom. She was still on the Kingsroad, and there wasn’t a town south of the Twins for some time. Whoever had started the fire was traveling, just like her.

 

To Arya’s surprise a lone figure sat by the little fire, and only one horse grazed nearby. Only fools traveled alone- fools or desperate men. With some amusement Arya wondered into which category she fit.

 

“Hullo,” she called, pitching her voice just a little lower than it naturally was.

 

“Hello,” the figure replied: male, southron, high-born.

 

“Can I join your fire?” Arya called. She dismounted so that the man could see how small she was, how non-threatening she appeared. Arya didn’t mind being born a girl; she hadn’t in a long time. Her body was a permanent disguise, for who would suspect a small, slight woman of deadly skills?

 

“You’re welcome,” said the figure, his vowels round and rich.

 

Arya stepped into the circle of light and froze. She knew her face didn’t give anything away; the Waif had beaten the reactions right out of her. But she froze unnaturally, and it was long enough for the golden-haired man to get a good look at her as well.

 

“Arya?” he asked, shock clear on his face.

 

Arya wouldn’t have forgotten that jawline, those green eyes, the air of easy, well-earned confidence that oozed from the Kingslayer’s every pore.

 

“You’re supposed to be dead,” he said, pushing himself to his feet.

 

Arya noticed then that the fingers on his right hand and his right wrist didn’t flex, and once he was upright he held it awkwardly, close to his stomach. That combined with his sword on the wrong hip…

 

“And you’re supposed to be the greatest swordsman in Westeros,” she drawled.

 

Arya turned her back on him, confident that she could still get to her sword faster than he could reach for his. She untacked her horse, dragged her saddlebags over to the fire, and staked the horse out to graze.

 

“Where have you _been?”_ he asked after she sat down cross-legged by the fire.

 

“Here and there,” said Arya. She dug in her bag and pulled out a couple biscuits. “Want one?”

 

He nodded and she tossed it at him. He caught it with his left hand, but barely, a fumbling grasp. She noted this comfortably- she could rest easy here tonight, and if she decided to kill him, it wouldn’t be too much trouble.

 

“Here and there,” the Kingslayer repeated, looking down at the little lumpy piece of bread in his hand. “Gods, if I’d stumbled across you four years ago…”

 

Four years ago Arya had left the Hound where he lay and had sailed to Essos.

 

“Good for me you didn’t,” she said cheerfully around a mouthful of stale biscuit.

 

“Yes,” said the Kingslayer. They sat quietly for a moment, listening to the crackling of the fire, before he asked, “Why are you riding south? You do know your family is _that_ way?” he said, gesturing north.

 

“I’m going south to kill the queen,” said Arya, casually as could be. Would he mock her?

 

He laughed, but not cruelly. “Oh, gods this is rich,” he said. “Cersei… well, she once said something very similar about you.” He stared into the fire, seemingly caught in memory.

 

“What family do I have in the north?” asked Arya. She’d heard rumors about Sansa, about a marriage bargain, but had discounted them as false. The Lannisters would never have let her leave alive.

 

“Your brother- excuse me, _half brother,”_ drawled Jaime. “We can’t forget dear Ned’s bastard, can we? Your half brother and your sister, Sansa. Last I heard they were holed up in Winterfell, turning the place into the next Dreadfort.”

 

 _Jon, Jon, Jon._ Arya hadn’t even dared to hope that he still lived. Would he welcome her home?

 

“Why is he home?” Arya demanded. “He was a brother of the Night’s Watch, they serve for life.”

 

Jaime pulled a face and lifted a skin to his lips. He drank a few sips, awkwardly corked the skin, and set it away from him. “Rumor has it that he did serve for life,” he said. “But we southroners are always being told queer stories about the northroners; about how you bed down with wild creatures to stay warm, about giants and snarks and grumpkins.”

 

Arya didn’t rise to the bait. Jon was alive, Jon was home.

 

“How did you recognize me?” she demanded. “And why are you out here alone?”

 

“I could ask you the same things,” said Jaime, rummaging in his saddlebag. He came up with a few strips of dried meat, and he tossed one to Arya. She gnawed a piece off with her teeth and tucked it into her cheek to soften.

 

Arya shrugged. “That’s easy: you still _look_ like a Lannister, even if you aren’t dressed like one. I’m out here alone because that’s how I’ve survived, and besides: who would help me kill the queen?”

 

“Me, on the right day,” said Jaime in an offhand way.

 

“But-”

 

“Yes, yes, ‘but’,” said Jaime. He waved Arya’s interruption away. “As for you: you bear a striking resemblance to your Aunt Lyanna. Something about your cheekbones and the shape of your eyes. The color too, of course,” he added. “You northron lot even have grey, bland eyes, just like the rest of your godforsaken kingdom.”

 

“Not all of us,” said Arya calmly, methodically chewing. “Just a few of the Starks. Just me and Jon, now.”

 

 _No,_ thought Jaime. _Just you._ Jon was all Ned Stark’s son, at least he had been five years ago. He’d had old Ned’s fingerprints all over him; Arya… Arya _was_ like her aunt. They’d both been something _other,_ something wild that didn’t seem to come from their staid northron parents. Lyanna hadn’t resembled Rickard or Lyarra, not in the least, nor did Arya remind him of Cat or Ned, particularly now; now when she moved so queerly, so fluidly. They were something of the North itself, the oldest and largest and strangest of the kingdoms.

 

“Why are you heading north alone?” asked Arya.

 

“Because I promised your half brother and his dragon whelp that I would.”

 

Arya leaned forward- _dragons._ She’d heard the rumors, everyone in the House of Black and White had heard the rumors. Magic had been stirring, and dragons had been spotted over Slaver’s Bay, or over the Shadowlands, or over the Dothraki sea.

 

“Tell me,” said Arya.

 

Jaime shrugged. “I was summoned to the Dragon Pit, along with most of the other remaining nobles in Westeros. Tyrion sent for me- he’s serving the Targaryen girl now.”

 

Arya could hear that there was no pain or regret or dislike in the Kingslayer’s voice.  He was almost as good at masking his feelings as she was.

 

“Were there dragons?”

 

He barked a laugh. “Oh, yes. Big bastards, and the Targaryen girl came riding in on the largest.”

 

“I’d like to ride a dragon,” said Arya.

 

“I bet you would,” said the Kingslayer. “But the dragons weren’t the strangest thing I saw that day. Your brother was there with a walking dead man, his eyes glowing blue even though the flesh had rotted from his bones.”

 

Arya scooched forward, wishing that she had the gift of mindwalking or greenseeing, because she wanted to have seen it, too. “What was it like?” she asked in the voice of a supplicant asking for a blessing.

 

“Like nothing I’ve ever seen,” said Jaime, snapping a small twig into increasingly tiny bits. “He ran out of a crate, his knee bones clicking where the flesh was gone. He would have charged Cersei, but Clegane had him on a chain.”

 

“Clegane?” asked Arya. _Clegane, the Hound, a huge frame and scarred face masking a soul as lost and dark as hers was._ She remembered him lying in the dirt, slurring his words, asking for the Gift, a Gift she’d withheld. Had she hoped he’d live? Had she wanted him to die? Arya Stark had never known, not even when she’d been beaten for it.

 

“Turned out the Hound lived; had disappeared into the woods much like you did,” said the Kingslayer. “Is there some hidden village of misfits the rest of us don’t know about?”

 

“No,” said Arya, cooly.

 

Jaime shrugged, a sinuous motion that highlighted the grace that Arya had admired when she’d first seen him nearly six years before. “Snow burned the hand, which killed that bit of it, but the dead man- your brother called it a wight- still fought. Dragonglass can kill them, and Valyrian steel as well.” He paused and fingered the pommel of the grubby sword beside him.

 

“Snow told us that if we didn’t unite now and stand against the foe to the North we’d all be united in death. We agreed, Cersei and the Targaryen girl and Snow and my brother and me, that the Wall where where the real fight would be. We’d pool our resources, preserve humanity for another generation, and then sort out our land squabbles.”

 

He scooted lower in his spot, resting his head against the log behind him, and closed those shockingly green eyes.  “I went back to the Keep with Cersei. It had been nearly a year since I’d seen her… she told me that I was the stupidest Lannister after all; that Tyrion and I could go to all the seven hells while she saw the name of Lannister restored.’

 

“She won’t fight,” he said. “She won’t send troops to the north, and she made it clear that if I was to take men I’d be hunted down and hung as a traitor.”

 

Arya looked at him and cocked her head. “The Kinslayer siblings,” she said. “It’s got a good ring to it.”

 

Jaime turned his face away from her, a muscle twitching in his jaw. “I made a promise,” he finally said. “And this one I mean to keep. If I go alone, so be it.”

 

Arya tossed a branch on to the fire, and they listened to it hiss and snap.

 

“Most people wouldn’t believe you, you know,” she said. “They wouldn’t believe that you’d seen a dead man attack.”

 

“And you do believe me?” asked the Kingslayer, his voice mocking again. “Why?”

 

“I can tell,” said Arya.

 

“You can tell,” said Jaime. “Do they teach you that in ...where were you, again? Invisibility training?” He sounded bitter, like one small girl shouldn’t have been able to so effectively hide among a continent’s worth of strangers.

 

“Yes,” said Arya, because truly that was what she’d learned in the House of Black and White. She’d learned to be unmemorable, unremarkable; to be anyone and everyone, just a face in the crowd. It was a form of practical invisibility: she hid in plain sight.

 

Syrio Forel had taught her about truth in the small chamber in the Tower of the Hand. Syrio had been chosen as the First Sword of Braavos because he could see the truth of what was in front of him. It’s how the Faceless Men remained secret as well: most people bumbled through life half-blind to the things around them. They saw what they expected to see or what they _wanted_ to see. Life was more comfortable that way- they didn’t have to be confronted by ugliness, by surprises, by the hard truths that cut more deeply than swords.

 

Arya had had her own self-deceptions beaten away by Weese, by the Waif, by all the strangers who’d found a blind girl an easy target. Now like it or not, Faceless or not, Arya was confronted by the truth, bare and unadorned.

 

Jaime Lannister, Kinslayer, Kingslayer, and Oathbreaker, was telling it.

 

She gave a one-shoulder shrug and thought of Jon. If she’d been able to sail north four years ago…

 

“I’ll ride north,” she said. Ayra told herself it would be faster and easier to ride north together. It would be tiresome to fight all the way through the Neck, for two people were less likely to be attacked than one. She certainly wasn’t interested in discovering how the Kingslayer had come to find himself in dirty boiled leather and missing a hand.

 

“Good,” said Jaime. “Then I’ll be able to keep two promises.”

 

“What’s the second promise?” asked Arya.

 

The Kingslayer wrapped himself in his cloak and pulled his saddle blanket across his legs. “Go to sleep, wolf-girl,” he said.

 

Arya curled up next to the fire, wrapped her hand around the hilt of her sword, and closed her eyes. She’d be riding with the Kingslayer for weeks: plenty of time for her to learn his secrets.

 

~~~

 

They rode north together for four uneventful days. Jaime spent the evenings shivering in his too-thin cloak, with Arya across the fire from him, twitching in her sleep. He asked her once, concerned, if she had a history of the shaking sickness and she’d laughed and told him she just had vivid dreams. He wondered what they were about.

 

How had she survived so long? Where had she been? She carried a sword, a light little thing that could never have pierced armor. She even slept with it, curled around it like a mother with her child. She moved like no one he’d seen, every movement full of purpose and grace. She was an oddity, but at least she was easy to travel with. She didn’t complain, didn’t babble, and was practiced at setting up a camp. Maybe she’d lived with the Crannogmen; no one would be foolish enough to chase after her into the swamps.

 

Several times Jaime had slipped and almost called her Lyanna. He’d been fascinated with the Stark girl when he was a youth. She’d ridden astride, her dark hair a banner behind her. When her father and brothers had chased after her, laughing and cursing, she’d only bent low over her horse’s neck and urged her mount on faster. She’d been just as frustrated with a woman’s role as Cersei, but there was no bitterness there, none of the rage that had made Cersei’s lips thin and her eyes wrinkled.

 

Jaime briefly wondered why every woman he was attracted to was less-than-feminine, but had quickly shoved that thought away for two reasons. Firstly, it implied that he was interested in masculine women, and despite his long tolerance for men who took their pleasure with each other (after all, who was _he_ to throw stones?) he didn’t like what it implied about himself. Secondly, and more disturbingly, it implied that Jaime was attracted to the child traveling with him. She was a _child,_ he told himself firmly. A child with thousand year-old eyes, yes. A child who moved like she had the flexibility of a Lysene whore, the speed of a snake, and the confidence of thrice-damned Barristan Selmy.

 

Things finally got interesting on the fifth day.

 

They’d stopped for the night, the wolf-girl going off to collect branches and scrub that they could burn. Jaime could brush down a horse with his left hand, so and he was left to watch the saddlebags and their mounts. They were slightly south of the turnoff towards Greywater Watch, maybe ten days from Moat Cailin if the weather held.

 

Arya returned, silent and sylph-like, and efficiently built a fire. They were companionably gnawing dried venison and apples when a group of men crested a small hill on the Kingsroad and spotted their fire. “Hey!” one of them called. “Can we join?”

 

“Come on,” said Jaime, knowing by now that welcome was more likely to result in a peaceful night than amity. Unfortunately,  he didn’t get his wish.

 

As soon as the men, four in total, hit the little ring of light cast by their fire the strangers drew their swords.

 

Arya was faster, and Jaime had been prepared for something like this, but four to two… “Now’s your chance to prove you know how to use that little sword,” he mumbled to Arya.

 

She snorted, her sword held unwaveringly towards the four men on the other side of the fire. “Now’s your chance to prove you can fight with your left hand,” she said, and then leapt across the fire and attacked. The first man fell instantly, a fountain of blood lurching between his fingers from a hole in his neck. Jaime missed what the wolf-bitch did next because one of the men was lunging at him now, the cheap iron of his blade warping as it crossed with Jaime’s. Now, in the light, Jaime could see the leaping fish embroidered on the soldier’s tunic beneath layers and layers of grime.

 

“You’re a Tully,” he said, clumsily parrying a blow that he’d have had no trouble sidestepping at sixteen.

 

“And you’re dead,” said the other man, crowding Jaime back.

 

Jaime had trained with Ser Ilyn for more than a year now, trying to force some of his previous skill into his left hand. On dark nights, when the moon didn’t shine and sleep didn’t come easy, Jaime thought that maybe all he’d been- his skill, his beauty, his name- had lived in that hand. The practice had helped; at least he usually remembered to stand with his left foot forward now.

 

 _Stand with my left foot forward,_ he thought. He’d started practicing footwork with his father’s retainers at the Rock the week after his mother’s death; he wasn’t relearning it now. Everything he did was backwards, everything he did was _wrong,_ and it would be the death of him.

 

The Tully man clearly knew it because he smiled, the rotting stumps of his teeth catching the orange glow of the fire. “You’re not good enough for that sword,” he said, stepping closer to Jaime and batting the next sword blow away easily. “I think I’ll take it.”

 

They were trading blows nearly hilt to hilt now, the blades pointed sharply into the air. Jaime was taller than the other man, his arms were longer, he could _do_ this. He dropped his sword, ducked the following blow while reaching for his boot, and rose to jam the dagger into the Tully’s eye before the man could recover from the massive swing that had nothing there to meet it.

 

The Tulley man dropped and Jaime searched the ground for his sword before rising to find Arya.  He didn’t know what he’d expected- likely a dead wolf-whelp- but what he found was even more worrisome. Arya was grinning, fighting both the remaining Tully soldiers. They were larger than her, their swords longer, and yet she spun between them like the breeze, toying with them, making them spin in stupid slow circles and swing their swords into air that had contained Arya Stark for no more than a moment.

 

It was beautiful. It was art. And Jaime should probably help.  

 

He lunged towards the nearest man, but Arya’s blade was quicker, her little sword darting through the first man’s eye, then through the second’s white throat.

 

They gurgled as they died, and Jaime stood with his mouth open, his brain consumed with the force that had been Arya at work. “You-” he started.

 

“You’re _useless,”_ Arya hissed, casually wiping her blade on the tunic of one dying man. “I should leave you here to get eaten by a bear!”

 

That stung and surprised him. Once he’d have loved nothing more than to spar with her, to dance the bloody dance with an equal, but now he had nothing except a name universally hated by every man, woman, and child in Westeros. Bewildered by her anger, furious at his lot in life, Jaime shouted back.

 

“Fine, go!” he said, retrieving his dagger from the dead man’s skull.  “Take your scrawny arse north, wolf-girl. You don’t need anyone, do you? You’re Arya Stark, you’re a brilliant fighter! Let me tell you something, Stark bitch: your name won’t protect you, and you can’t win forever.” He waved his stump at her. “That family of yours doesn’t know you’re alive, and if I remember correctly, there’s no love lost between you and your sister. You think she’ll welcome you back home? She’s been married to half the men in this kingdom, all of them on the wrong side of the war. She’s sitting in a precarious seat, and having a daughter of the North return won’t help.”

 

Jaime turned and strode off towards his saddlebags, hoping to get his horse saddled and to ride away from this carnage before someone else came along to find them.

 

When he stood with his saddlebags in hand Arya was still there, her grey eyes mirror-blank. “You’re still here,” he said. “Your invisibility training is lacking, wolf-bitch. Run off to wherever you came from. I don’t need you to protect me.”

 

Jaime turned and angrily saddled his horse. _He was a knight,_ Jaime thought. He should be protecting _her_ , he should be returning her to her home like he’d promised Catelyn and Brienne so many years ago. Instead… instead here they were, four men dead at their feet, and he’d killed one with luck and a trick.

 

Arya was there beside him when he pulled himself up onto his horse. He didn’t say anything, and neither did she. Together, each keeping their own silence, they rode north.

 

~~~

 

Arya didn’t know why she’d stayed. He hadn’t scared her with his bluster: everyone died eventually, and Arya would welcome the Gift when it came. She hadn’t wanted to be saddled with a riding partner, but she’d enjoyed those first days with Jaime. He was quiet and clever and uncomplaining, and likely he was the only man in Westeros who would ride with her without asking why she was wearing breeches, where she’d been for five years, and how she’d planned on dispatching the queen.

 

And then he’d gone and revealed his weakness to Arya. She’d hated him for it in that moment, in that flickering, firelit fight. He’d been all _wrong,_ off balance and unsure and too slow to survive on his own. He’d revealed himself to be as suited to the fight ahead as Old Nan, and Arya had _hated_ him for his bravery, for his attempt at honor, for the sheer idiocy of riding alone to Winterfell in a country that had been decimated by a war started and funded by his own family.

 

The weak were weak and that was fine- but the weak should stay home to be guarded.

 

He’d snapped back- roared, more like, the lion of his house in truth- and had told her that one day what had happened to _him_ could happen to her. She could be made clumsy and vulnerable, for truly there were worse things than death. Arya would kill herself if someone took away her ability to fight, but… would she really?

 

She’d gone through so much to live. She’d learned three new languages, had taken more beatings that she would ever have been able to recall, had splintered herself into a wolf-self, a mouse-self, a Faceless-self; so many facets and personalities that this Arya Stark felt like a stranger. Would she void all of that out with one quick swallow of poison or slash of a knife?

 

She looked over at Jaime as they rode. He’d worried her with his talk of Sansa, but more than that, she’d been reminded that in every way Jaime was alone. He’d lost his hand, his pride, and his pack, and yet still he fought. And yet still he rode north to die on an unwinnable front.

 

Arya didn’t know what to do with that information, but together they rode on.


	2. Here We Go Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jaime is a feminist, and doesn't know it.

The first measurable snowfall came a few days later, and it quickly became apparent that Jaime hadn’t stolen clothes appropriate for the winter. 

 

“What were you thinking?” Arya asked the Kingslayer as they sat on opposite sides of a smoking fire. “You took a  _ pretty  _ cloak rather than a warm one. At least you stole a sturdy horse.”

 

“How do you know I stole them?” asked Jaime, not rising to her bait. 

 

“Do you own anything without a bloody lion on it somewhere?”

 

Jaime glared at Arya from across the fire and she grinned, enjoying his ire. Wolves howled in the distance, closer than they’d been below the Twins. Yoren had once told her that the only wolves she should fear were other men, and Arya agreed. Nature held no more fears for her, not after the things she’d done and seen. 

 

Arya rolled her eyes at the Kingslayer and walked around the fire to sit next to him. She’d taken flannel-lined breeches and a quilted tunic from the Freys; she was more than warm enough for this light snow. She scooted so that her right side was pressed to his left from ankle to hip. With her blanket and both of their saddle blankets they should be plenty warm, even if they did end up smelling of horse. 

 

“You could at least ask to court me first,” Jaime joked, though he helped tuck the blankets around them all the same. 

 

“Shut up,” said Arya. 

 

Jaime wrapped his left arm around Arya, who was laying on her back, her head resting on the Kingslayer’s saddle. Jaime’s awkward embrace left her with her head cushioned on his shoulder. She thought about scooting away or threatening to take his remaining hand, but the poor fool of a man had stopped shivering, and the point of this exercise was to keep each other warm. 

 

Arya closed her eyes and thought about Gendry. Five years ago, on the run from Kings Landing, she’d slept curled next to Gendry, her back to his. He was the biggest and the strongest of the boys, and she’d been the fastest and the cleverest. They’d protected each other, they’d been  _ pack, _ and then he’d left for the Brotherhood, and the Brothers without Banners had sold him like a sack of meal. 

 

She told herself it was the same thing, traveling with Jaime. They’d watch each other’s backs and his knowledge of the geography of Westeros was better than her own. The Faceless Men hadn’t taught her much about wayfinding, and in Winterfell it had been her brothers that received military training. She’d been reduced to fan stitches and colored embroidery thread. Arya imagined the look on Septa Mordane’s face if the wrinkled woman could see her now, and fell asleep with a smirk on her lips. 

 

That night Arya dreamed that she was singing, her voice raised in harmony with those of kin, her pack. It was a song without words, a melody without rhythm, the ululation of the universe itself. The song was a war cry and a celebration, a calling and a response. 

 

She woke with Jaime shaking her, an odd look on his face. “You were shaking,” he said, concerned again. 

 

Arya was annoyed at being woken up for this again. “I told you,” she said, rolling away from him. “I have vivid dreams.”

 

“What were you dreaming?” asked the Kingslayer, his voice full of curiosity and doubt.

 

“About music,” said Arya. 

 

He was quiet behind her, but it was the intense quiet of someone trying to decide if they should speak. 

 

“What?” asked Arya crossly. They needed to sleep: Winterfell was still two weeks away at least, and the snows would only keep falling and make the journey more and more dangerous. 

 

“I thought, when you woke- your eyes looked yellow,” he said. 

 

“That’s stupid,” said Arya. “It was the reflection of the fire.”

 

“The fire went out,” said Jaime, rolling so that they were back to back. “G’night, wolf-girl.”

 

“Good night, Kingslayer,” said Arya, falling asleep again. 

 

They didn’t speak of it in the morning, for which Arya was thankful. She knew- she  _ suspected-  _ that she’d been warging into wolves for years. She’d had to admit it to herself after seeing the Braavosi streets through the eyes of a cat when she’d been Blind Beth. She’d tricked the kindly man into thinking she’d learned to see with her other senses, and in a way she had: they just hadn’t been senses that normal humans possessed. 

 

She welcomed the wolf-dreams; they were a needed break from the echoes of the faces that she’d worn, the horrors that she herself had seen, the terrors the future held for her. When she dreamed of wolves she was free, her mind steeped in the sharp thoughts of a predator, her body a perfect and efficient machine. When she woke to find herself in a short, two-legged body with flat teeth and long fingers she was always just a little disappointed. 

 

She slept next to Jaime every night, and mentally planned to find a new face and steal him some warmer clothes when they made it to Moat Cailin. It was… odd, sleeping curled next to the Kingslayer. She’d slept with Gendry like this, and with Brusco’s daughters, but that had felt very different. Jaime was  _ big,  _ taller than Gendry, and fighting and riding had left him muscular and lean. It felt strange to sleep next to a man who had killed more men than he could count, more than he could probably know, and who had broken every sacred vow and killed his king. 

 

Arya thought about that a lot. The Faceless Men were honorable, in their way. They were expensive, costly enough that an angry husband wouldn’t think lightly of asking the Faceless Men to make him a widower. The Faceless Men didn’t take pleasure in their jobs, in their faith, and the Gift was to be given carefully and quietly. If the Gift was painless, it was a job even better done. All of humanity was welcome in the House of Black and White, and the merciful Gift was given to the high and low, men and women, black and white and brown alike. 

 

The East thought differently about honor than the Westerosi. In Essos it was the most honorable thing to be rich and pay your debts- come to think of it, the Lannisters would have done well in Braavos. Duels were honorable there, and whoring was considered a service to humankind. It was a warmer place, a busier place. 

 

Here things were messy and honor was a thing without definition, a code that differed for men and women and highborn and lowborn. A king seemed exempt: he could do as he pleased, he could indiscriminately burn his citizenry alive, and yet his death was seen as the blackest of stains of Jaime’s honor. How? 

 

Arya pondered this as she and her king slaying, kin slaying companion rode north through increasingly snowy roads. If he’d killed a lord or a commoner who’d committed the same insane acts as Areys, he’d be immortalized in song forever. Instead he killed a king he’d sworn to serve, but kingship hadn’t make Aerys any less insane. What would that have been like for the young Lion, the youngest man to ever be sworn into the Kingsguard?

 

Arya realized that he’d been her age when he’d killed the king: seventeen and far from home. She was distracted by this thought when she and Jaime were attacked again. 

 

~~~

 

Jaime had been riding along, mentally comparing  _ this  _ trip to Winterfell with the last one he’d made, when they’d passed through a clump of northern evergreen trees on a bend in the road. They were a day’s ride south of Moat Cailin, and Jaime had been hoping to purchase warmer clothes there. 

 

Before they’d made it through the trees four horses had galloped out of the woods to block his and Arya’s path, and nearly a dozen more men melted out of the shadows. “Where you headed?” one asked. His hair and beard were long and unkept and he had a red scar high on one cheek. 

 

“North,” said Arya, her hand resting on the hilt of her little sword. Jaime’s mount stomped uneasily. 

 

“There’s a lot of land to the north,” said the bearded man. “Which part?”

 

“Winterfell,” said Arya, and Jaime wondered what her plan was. She couldn’t fight off a dozen men on her own, and he was being generous if he thought he could defeat three. 

 

“I don’t think so,” said scraggly beard. “I think you and your fine horses are coming with us.”

 

Four men approached Arya’s horse, and four approached Jaime’s. “You’re coming out of those saddles,” said Scraggles. “One way or another.”

 

Arya glanced over at Jaime and in that second her eyes weren’t mirrors only reflecting back his own emotions, they were windows, murder holes into her terror and anger and bottomless, furious rage. He wondered what had happened to so fill her with fury. (After all, she still had both hands.)

 

_ Get off the horse, _ he wanted to tell her.  _ Get off and pick your moment.  _

 

She did, sliding nimbly from her horse to the ground. Jaime did as well, once again feeling the humiliation and fear of having his hand tied behind his back. The soldiers discovered they couldn’t tie a stump, so his arms were tied at the elbows, forcing his shoulders back uncomfortably. 

 

Arya’s hands were bound as well, and side by side they were walked off the road. A little ways into the forest they were blindfolded, and Jaime’s ghost-fingers twitched. He’d been here before, helpless and bound, and it hadn’t ended well for him. They stumbled their way over roots and logs and slushy, snowy ground. 

 

The air changed eventually, warmer and stale, and he guessed they were in a cave. He was nearly shaking with nerves and anger. Who were these scum, these rapers and thieves and low-born fools? Four years ago he could have fought fifteen and won-

 

Four years ago he’d never have been taken, because he’d been the Young Lion, the Kingslayer, the most talented swordsman in the seven kingdoms, and it would have been suicide to try. 

 

Jaime’s thoughts moved from himself to Arya as he was forced to his knees. She’d be raped, passed from man man to man, and then killed. 

 

_ The last time I was captured I played the chivalrous knight and it cost me my hand. You’re on your own, wolf-bitch _ , Jaime thought. What did it say about his life that he kept ending up in this position? This would teach him to travel with a woman…

 

...but they were dealt such a bad hand; not allowed to look beyond their hearths and offspring. He’d never wanted the life he’d been born to, he’d never wanted the Rock or to rule. He’d only wanted Cersei and a sword in his hand. He’d lost them both, but at least he’d been given the opportunity to make his own future. Women weren’t even given that. 

 

The blindfold was yanked off and Jaime saw that he was in a large cave with a fire in the middle and a pool of clear water off to the side. Swords and pikes and axes were leaned against the far wall, a spit held a hank of venison that hissed and sizzled over the fire, and nearly twenty men were gathered in the open space. 

 

Arya was next to him, her face blank and her hands still bound. She was breathing slowly, calmly, and her eyes were unfocused and unblinking. Jaime realized with a start that she’d gone away inside herself, so far inside herself that her body seemed empty. It had taken Jaime years to learn that skill; he’d stood countless hours outside the Queen’s chambers while Aerys raped his wife and while Robert lay with Cersei. He’d watched (and smelled,  _ gods  _ the smell) men burned inside their armour. He’d heard wounded men left groaning on the battlefield as crows came for their eyes. 

 

It had taken Jaime years to learn to turn off his eyes and ears and mind. He wondered how long it had taken the small girl next to him. 

 

“Who are you?” asked Scraggly, standing in front of the fire with his arms folded. 

 

“Jaime Lannister,” drawled Jaime. The Lannister name still carried some weight, and he was the queen’s brother. They didn’t know she’d shunned him; he was worth more alive than dead. 

 

“Lads!” Scraggly roared. “We caught ourselves the Kingslayer!”

 

His companions cheered. 

 

“What about the girl?” asked Scraggly. “We’d heard you liked ‘em blonde.”

 

The familiar burn of rage and insult arose as it always did when someone mentioned his relationship with Cersei, but now the cause had changed. No longer did he think of them as cursed lovers, accidentally born into a family that wasn’t Targaryen. No longer did he think that Cersei was  _ his  _ and any insult done her was also done to him. Now Jaime’s stomach burned with regret and embarrassment: at least the Targaryen sibling-spouses had truly been in love. 

 

Jaime let the jab roll off his back. “But this one’s young,” he drawled. “Doesn’t that trump hair color?”

 

The men cheered again, catcalling Arya and agreeing with Jaime, asking her if she’d ever taken a  _ real  _ man between her legs. 

 

Jaime steeled himself for what was going to happen next. He’d be killed and then she’d be raped if he was lucky. If he was unlucky, it would happen the other way around. Jaime had seen more than enough rape to last him a thousand lifetimes. It wasn’t worth telling them that Arya was a highborn girl; no one was left that would ransome her; her whole family thought she was dead. If he told the Brotherhood that Arya was highborn they’d only fuck her harder. 

 

“We know what to do with the girl,” said Scraggly. “But what about this lonely lion?”

 

The men screamed for blood.  _ Sorry, wolf-girl _ , thought Jaime.  _ Shouting ‘sapphires’ isn’t going to work this time. _

 

“Me ‘n Warryn, we fought with the northmen before the Red Wedding,” Scraggly told Jaime. “We didn’t go to the party that night, not special enough, see? Good thing, too. But it seems to me… seems to me that you outta be held accountable for what happened. Betraying a man at a wedding’s bad luck. “S’even worse when it’s done to guests, right?”

 

Arya twitched at the mention of massacre at the Twins. 

 

“Now,” Scraggly continued. “A couple of my friends here say that it weren’t all Old Walder’s idea. There’s only one family in the kingdoms that think like that.”

 

“You can’t possibly think to try me for what my father did?” asked Jaime, annoyed. He hadn’t known about the plan, but when he’d heard of the massacre, fresh and feverish from the loss of his hand, he’d thought it had been a wondrous idea. But, truthfully, it hadn’t been his idea at all. 

 

“‘Course we do,” he said. “Besides, if’n you want to get technical, we don’t think Oathbreakers should be allowed to live if we’re not. We just think that highborns are twats and banners are stupid. Your lot seem to think that everything’s okay if you’re rich enough.”

 

Jaime didn’t have anything to say to that. Part of him was glad that Arya wasn’t paying attention to this exchange. He didn’t have much shame left, but if she’d been listening (if  _ Ned Stark’s daughter  _ had been listening) he’d have found some embarrassment to spare. 

 

Another man stepped forward, this one in a sackcloth robe with a star branded onto his forehead.  _ You missed one, Cersei,  _ thought Jaime.

 

“Jaime Lannister, I try you before the gods and men for the following crimes: kin slaying, king slaying, oath breaking-”

 

“Yes, yes,” said Jaime, pushing himself up to his feet. “Let’s get on with it.” He wasn’t eager to die, but he wasn’t about to meet the Stranger kneeling in a dank cave. 

 

The septon wasn’t deterred. “-adultery, betraying Guest Rights, and treason,” the old man finished. 

 

“Fine,” said Jaime. “I choose a trial by combat.”

 

“Can he do that?” one man in the crowd asked. 

 

The septon’s face went purple and pruny. “Fine,” he echoed. “Free this man and fetch him a sword.” 

 

Jaime’s bounds were cut and he rolled his shoulders, willing the blood to flow into his wrists and hand. 

 

The septon turned to Jaime and said, “You’ll fight with what we give you. Valyrian Steel wouldn’t be fair.”

 

“Oh, no,” said Jaime, looking pointedly at his one hand and the rope burns on his arms. “It has to be  _ fair.”  _

 

“I declare myself his champion,” said Arya, flowing to her feet. 

 

Jaime looked down at her in shock; he’d been sure she wasn’t paying attention. 

 

“It’s allowed,” said Arya. “And I declare myself his champion.”

 

“Look, wolf-girl,” said Jaime but the septon interrupted him. 

 

“Accepted. We’ll get this over with even more quickly,” he added smugly.

 

Jaime had been ready to protest, but that comment stopped him in his tracks. These men had  _ no idea  _ what they were getting with the Stark girl: watching might actually be fun. Jaime turned to Arya, bowed, and winked. “Thank you for your concern,” he said. “But I find myself fresh out of favors for you to wear into battle.”

 

To Jaime’s amusement, Arya bowed back. “I’ll collect one from you later.”

 

She turned to the septon after her ropes were cut as well. “May I use my own sword? The steel is quite regular.”

 

“Which is it?” the septon asked with suspicion. Jaime wondered why he wasn’t questioning the fact that a girl had her own sword. Was this septon stupid? 

 

“The small one, the one that was tied to the grey horse,” said Arya. The sword was duly fetched and inspected and found to be nothing unusual. 

 

“That little thing?” one Brother scoffed. “This fight will be over before it starts.”

 

“We’ll see,” said Arya, with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. 

 

A rough ring formed around Arya, and into the circle stepped Scraggly. He hadn’t bothered with a shield, and one hadn’t been offered to Arya. Jaime watched in anticipation as the fighters began to circle each other, the bearded man hunched, Arya straight and calm. 

 

He made the first lunge, an overhand swing that could have split Arya in half if the steel had been better and her movements slower. Instead the sword bounced off the rock floor in a shower of sparks. Arya was standing just to the side of the man’s sword, and when he swung she bent gracefully backwards, not perturbed by her opponent’s greater height and longer sword. 

 

Jaime watched, entranced, as Arya danced her way around the Brother. The big man looked like a bear next to Arya, but this time Jaime’s companion wasn’t in skirts and wasn’t weilding a tourney sword. She had yet to swipe at Scraggly; her sword was held loosely at her side. 

 

_ I used to be able to do that,  _ thought Jaime.  _ I used to feel my sword as an extension of my arm. I wouldn’t have dropped my blade any more easily than I’d have dropped my own fingers.  _

 

The other Brothers weren’t jeering any longer. Now they gasped when Arya avoided the other man’s sword by a hair’s width, they  _ oohed _ as she flowed away and around him, they whistled when she neatly flipped herself over backwards, grinning now at the anger on her opponent's face. 

 

Scraggly wasn’t a top fighter, that much was clear. All Arya had to do was wait for him to get tired and leave her an opening to exploit. 

 

Most sword fights didn’t last long. Cheap swords bent after a few blows and became useless. Better swordsmen with better steel could last a little longer, but nearly every one-on-one battle ended in a wrestling match and was won by the man with the better endurance. What Jaime was watching now wasn’t a sword fight, though- he didn’t know what it was, but he did know how he wanted it to end. 

 

The Brotherhood wanted it to end as well. They were pacing, fidgeting, losing interest in the display of skill in front of them. They’d been promised blood, and they wanted it  _ now.  _

 

Arya grinned as she ducked away again, skirting the edge of the circle, and Jaime saw the boot, but before he could yell out one of the observers had tripped Arya, catching her ankle with his foot and her hair with his fist. 

 

Jaime ran forward as Arya fell, fully prepared to do something stupid all over again, but someone grabbed him and hauled him back. Struggling and furious Jaime watched as Arya hit the ground, as she barely rolled out of the way of one blow, as the bear of a man raised his boot-

 

“No!” Jaime yelled. No, he couldn’t, no,  _ not to her,  _ didn’t he know  _ anything- _

 

Scraggly brought his boot down on Arya’s ankle, and the crack of bone echoed around the cavern. 

 

Jaime was already mourning her when the next blow came. Arya parried, her face white and her breath hissing through her teeth as she pushed the blow away from her, her little sword looking like a toy against the weight of the other. 

 

At the last moment, as Jaime accepted that he was getting ready to watch another Stark die, Arya twisted her torso, dropped her sword, and caught it with her other hand. In one smooth motion she’d stabbed her opponent high in the thigh. When she pulled the sword back blood gushed and Arya heaved herself to her feet as Scraggly’s knees buckled. 

 

The cavern was crypt-quiet as blood quickly pooled beneath Scraggly and Arya wavered on one foot, her face grey. 

 

It was the speton who broke the spell that had ensorceled all the men in the cavern. He stepped into the circle, scrunched his face, and declared, “Jaime Lannister is innocent in the eyes of the gods and men.”

 

“Excellent,” said Jaime, striding across the cavern and wrapping his arm around Arya’s shoulders. He was at least a foot taller than the girl; she barely hit the center of his breastbone. How was someone so small so deadly? So resilient? As far as Jaime was concerned, Tyrion and Arya were living proof that the gods had a sense of humor. “I suppose that means we can go?”

 

The one Scraggly had identified as Warryn stepped forward. “We’ll keep your horses as payment,” he said, his mouth tight and bitter. 

 

“One horse,” said Jaime. He’d need one to get Arya away from here: she’d saved his life, and a Lannister always pays his debts. “I’m innocent, remember? You’re stealing from a blameless man.”

 

“One horse,” said Warryn through gritted teeth. 

 

Jaime dragged Arya across the cave to the opening and out into the snowy afternoon. The horses were still standing there saddled, and Jaime remembered to grab Arya’s saddlebags and bedroll before tossing her belly-down across his black gelding’s neck. In that moment, after walking away from death yet again, Jaime decided he’d name this horse Redemption.

 

Jaime swung into the saddle and helped pull Arya upright and into his lap. She had her sword arm held tightly to her chest, and her breeches were wet with Scraggly’s blood. Jaime wondered if she’d been wounded, if some of the blood was hers, but he’d have to wait to find out. Right now they needed to get as far from the Brotherhood as they could. 

 

They rode as the afternoon light quickly faded. Jaime only knew they were going the right direction because the sun was to their left; they weren’t on the Kingsroad anymore. Arya was still and quiet in front of him, spookily so. Her foot had to hurt, it was bumping against Redemption as they walked and cantered along, but she never whimpered or hissed or cried.

 

“Arya,” he said as the setting sun turned the snow orange and yellow and red. “Should we stop? Do you need to stop?”

 

She didn’t answer, which was all the response Jaime needed. He pulled the horse to a halt in a little clearing of tall pines and slid down the horse’s side. He reached for Arya but instead of leaning towards him she passed him what she’d still been clutching to her chest: a heavy wool blanket.

 

“I took it for you as you pulled me out of the cave,” she said, her voice distant. Confused and surprised Jaime took the blanket before reaching for her again. It was awkward helping Arya down with one hand, but she was conscious and knew what he was trying to do. She kept one hand fisted in the horse’s mane and Jaime took her other arm and helped to guide her to the ground. 

 

She was pale and she wasn’t blinking enough for Jaime’s liking. “We need a fire,” she said. 

 

“Everything’s wet,” said Jaime. “But I suppose we should try.” He situated Arya against one of the trees where the snow was the thinnest before scavenging for wood. Old pine needles were slightly dry, and Jaime skinned bark from the trunks of trees. He found a few limbs as well, and dragged all this to Arya’s feet. 

 

He knew, as most lifelong soldiers did, that it was possible to start a fire with damp wood. It just wasn’t easy. He made a nest of pine needles, used his dagger to shred the treebark, and struck flint to steel. It sparked but didn’t catch. He tried again, more and more aware of the cold, of the encroaching night, of the slow and stiff way Arya was running the edge of her tunic up and down the steel of her sword, painstakingly cleaning something that was already spotless. For the first time in his adult life Jaime found himself more afraid of nature than the men creeping around in it. 

 

“I can do it,” said Arya. She was still running a hand up and down the steel, but she was looking at him now. 

 

“It’s wet,” said Jaime, frustrated. Did she think he knew  _ nothing?  _ “I learned to start fires before you were a squirt in old Ned’s balls,” he snapped. 

 

Arya shrugged. “I can do it.”

 

He tossed the flint and steel into her lap. “Fine.”

 

Slowly Arya scooted herself forward, cleared a circle of snow from the ground, and set the nest of pine needles and bark fluff inside. She cocked her head, stared at the ball of kindling, and struck the flint and steel together. Sparks fell into the fire nest, and soon a little wisp of smoke twined out. 

 

“How did you do that?” asked Jaime slowly. 

 

Arya didn’t look at him; her gaze was focused on something a thousand yards away that only she could see. “I’ve always been able to start fires,” she said. 

 

Jaime felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. She wasn’t just going away inside herself, she wasn’t just a skilled warrior at seventeen. She was  _ other,  _ she was something that he hadn’t ever seen. 

 

“Where were you since your father died?” asked Jaime, watching as Arya fed the little fire twigs. 

 

“Essos, mostly” said Arya. 

 

“Where in Essos?”

 

“Braavos.”

 

“And what were you doing in Braavos?”

 

“A girl did many things in Braavos.”

 

_ A girl.  _

 

Littlefinger had talked about the Faceless Men once when Robert had wanted to hire them to kill the exiled Targaryen children. Baelish had said the Faceless assassins were more expensive than a company of sellwords and more sure than the changing of the seasons. He said they wouldn’t use names or contracts, that they accepted jobs on a basis and agenda known only to those who had trained in the House of Black and White. 

 

“Did you live in a temple?” asked Jaime, his throat suddenly dry. 

 

“Yes.”

 

“Did you live in a house of death?”

 

A long pause. “A girl lived in the house of the Many Faced God.”

 

“Were you hurt?”  _ You’re getting soft, Lannister, _ he told himself.  _ Everyone gets fucking hurt. To live is to die, usually in pain.  _

 

She didn’t answer. 

 

Jaime moved closer to Arya and sat near the fire which was beginning to burn merrily. He realized that he knew almost nothing of the Northern people and their legends; he and Tyrion had laughed about stories of Others living beyond the Wall. Maybe they were all capable of starting fires with willpower alone, but he rather doubted it. They were a cold people. 

 

“Can I see your foot?” Jaime asked. 

 

Without wincing, without any expression at all, Arya turned and extended her leg. She was so short that she to be quite close to Jaime for this to work. He unlaced her boot and tugged it off her foot, very nearly gratified to see that she’d gone grey and green. She was in there somewhere, feeling and thinking and hiding Arya Stark from all that could hurt her. 

 

Even through her heavy wool sock Jaime could see that her foot and ankle were swollen. He rested her heel on his knee and rolled down the wool as gently as he could. Her ankle was… loose, wrong, and grotesquely purple. The blood had drained down into her foot so that it was black and purple and green as well. No bone poked through her skin; she would keep the foot, but it wouldn’t be healed for months. 

 

As Jaime pulled her sock back over the pale, nearly translucent skin he wondered when he’d last touched a woman- not even sexually. Just a touch. 

 

He’d fucked Cersei against their father’s altar, but that had been nearly three years ago now. Maybe Pia? When he’d pulled the soldiers off of her? 

 

He didn’t know. As a youth Jaime had thought his situation funny: he’d been forced to swear off lands he didn’t want, a wife he didn’t want, and children that he hadn’t even considered. His oath  _ had _ given him access to the two things he’d ever craved: Cersei and a good fight. Until recently he’d always thought that he’d gotten the better end of that deal. 

 

Now- now it was just sad. 

 

“We have to put your boot back on,” he said. He’d heard a maester say that once. “If we leave it off your foot will swell so badly that we won’t be able to get it back on and you’ll lose your toes in this cold.”

 

Arya nodded and reached for her boot. Jaime knew he’d be useless with one hand so he watched helplessly as Arya slowly, painstakingly, dragged her boot on over her swollen foot. She was sweating and green when the deed was done, and when Jaime looked closer he saw a little trickle of blood dribbling from her mouth onto her chin. 

 

She’d tried so hard not to cry out in front of him ( _ and had succeeded,  _ a little voice said) that she’d bitten her lip bloody. Here was a girl who’d been born for a soldier’s life. 

 

She had to tilt her face up to the sky, breathing deeply through her nose, before she could loosely lace her boot. Jaime was familiar with this technique: when he’d been riding home to King’s Landing smelling his own flesh rotting he’d frequently had to do just as she’d done. 

 

“We need to put a splint on it,” he said, standing to look for more branches. Jaime wanted her to ask him, “How do you know?” or “Where are you going?” He wanted her to be  _ normal,  _ to really be out here in the godforsaken wilderness of the Neck with him. 

 

She didn’t say anything as he went looking for timber. 

 

He found a little sapling growing straight and true, and with a sigh Jaime drew his sword and set to flailing at the little tree with a gold-hilted, Valyrian-steel blade.  _ This is ridiculous,  _ thought Jaime. Eventually the tree gave way and Jaime was able to break it into smaller chunks by holding it like a lever against the ground and jumping on it.

 

Arya was sitting where he’d left her. He used his dagger to cut thin strips of wool from his saddleblanket and tightly bound the pieces of sapling to her leg. 

 

Once Jaime’s main objective had been completed he sat down beside Arya and tried to think of the worst thing he could say. Already regretting what he was getting ready to do, Jaime said, “Your parents would be horrified at what you’ve become. Did your mother want you wearing breeches and killing people?”

 

Arya blinked, a little furrow forming between her eyes. 

 

Jaime pressed on. “No, Catelyn Tully wanted you to be a clone of your perfect, dutiful sister. Sansa is Tully through and though, just like Robb and Bran and that little whelp. You and the bastard are the only ones that look like the north. Did it ever occur to you that you might be a bastard as well?”

 

There, there it was, a flicker behind her eyes. Jaime remembered that on that first day, when they’d met on the Kingsroad south of the Twins, she’d only asked about Snow, not Sansa, not the sister that had caused the whole castle to call Arya ‘Horseface’. 

 

“But that wouldn’t explain why perfect Cat hated Snow and not you- you got to eat at the High Table, you could learn with her  _ real  _ children, but poor Snow- if she’d accepted him Winterfell might have been his. Better that he died at the Wall-”

 

Arya’s little fist caught Jaime square in the jaw, and shockingly, unexpectedly Jaime found himself laughing. 

 

“Don’t talk about my brother!” Arya hissed, her eyes angry slits. 

 

Jaime knew, absolutely  _ knew  _ that laughing at an angry woman was just about the stupidest thing a man could do, but he was so damn  _ happy  _ with her. She hadn’t slapped him, she’d thrown a damn good punch. She hadn’t cried and whined, she’d told him  _ exactly  _ what she was thinking. She was Arya again, and gods was Jaime happy to see her. 

 

“How do you do that?” he asked as she fumed. “How do you… stop being you?” 

 

Arya flopped back into the snow. “Is that why you were saying that shit?” she asked. “Just to get a rise out of me? It wouldn’t have worked, once.” Absently she touched her right hand to her left shoulder like she was feeling for phantom bruises. “One I really  _ was  _ nobody.”

 

“You joined the Faceless Men?” Jaime asked.

 

“Yes,” said Arya. She shivered, and Jaime rose to get their blankets. Tonight, instead of sitting side by side with her under the blankets, he tugged her against him. It was like this after battle, it was why he’d seen so much rape. Not that he wanted to rape her, not that at all. It was just… he was alive, and so was she, and that was a wonderful thing. 

 

Arya stiffened when he cupped her knee and tugged her injured leg over his. “What are you doing?” she asked, her voice just a little higher than normal, her hands pushing against his chest. 

 

“You should keep it up,” he said. “It’ll help with the swelling.” He gave her his best  _ I’m innocent of all things,  _ look. It was a good look; Jaime had perfected it on Tywin Lannister himself. 

 

“Alright,” said Arya, relaxing incrementally against him.

 

“It’s warmer like this, anyway,” said Jaime. 

 

Arya half shrugged. 

 

“How did you find the Faceless Men?” Jaime asked. 

 

“One found me when I was at Harrenhal,” said Arya, her voice a little unsure. “He told me that if I wanted to learn to do what he did I should go to any Braavosi ship, give them a coin, and say, “Valar Morghulis.” I escaped from Harrenhal, and ...the ship wouldn’t take me north,” she said. “I wanted to go to Jon.”

 

Jaime wondered if there had been something there, something between the siblings of the north, but no- she’d have been eleven or twelve the last time she’d seen her brother. 

 

“I went to Essos instead, and found the House of Black and White.”

 

“They taught you to disappear inside yourself,” said Jaime. 

 

“They taught me lots of things,” said Arya. “We should sleep.”

 

Jaime knew when he was being dismissed. It stung, he wanted to know more. “Good night, wolf-bitch,” he said, the words dripping venom. 

 

“Good night, Kingslayer,” she retorted. 

 

Jaime thought about rolling her away from him, shoving her out from under the blankets and into the snow, but then he remembered Brienne. She’d listened to him whine and complain and name-call her for months and not once had she tried to drown him in a river or smash his head in with a rock. Granted, she was the most obstinately honorable creature the gods had ever given breath, but if she could tolerate him, he could deal with a hurting and alone seventeen year old. 

 

Strangely empathetic Jaime carefully rested his hand on the curve of Arya’s waist. She was already breathing evenly and didn’t twitch at the contact. He wondered if she’d slept with someone like this when she was in Essos; he wondered if Faceless Men could take lovers. Maybe it was only bullheaded knights who had to swear celibacy. 

 

Jaime awoke in the darkest part of the night when the fire had burned way down low. Something had startled him; something had triggered an instinct that had kept Jaime alive for thirty five years. He didn’t move at first, just listened.  _ There-  _ a rustle in the underbrush. And there it was again: panting. 

 

Slowly Jaime raised his head and looked over the clearing. Yellow eyes stared back at him from the treeline. 

 

Without taking his gaze from the beast in the shadows Jaime shook Arya. “Wolves,” he said. “They’re all around us.”

 

Arya blinked up at him. “Oh, they’re nothing to worry about,” she said. 

 

Jaime wanted to feel her head for fever. “I hate to argue with a lady,” he said. “But I think we should be very worried.”

 

Arya yawned at him. “They’re just curious, they’ll go away in a bit.”

 

A few minutes later there was more rusting and the wolves were gone. The air pressure in the clearing returned to normal, and Arya was already back to sleep.

 

There was something strange about this northern girl, Jaime decided. Something strange indeed.

 

Jaime woke again in the morning, the weak light of a northern dawn magnified by its reflection off the snow. Little rainbows glinted in the air, and Jaime was struck by how beautiful winter could be. He’d grown up in the Westerlands where it mostly rained in winter, and if it snowed it never stuck. 

 

Arya was gone. Jaime felt her side of the pallet- cool to the touch. He didn’t see her in the clearing, but there were tracks in the snow: hand prints and drag marks. Wherever it was she’d gone, she’d gotten there by crawling. 

 

Idiot girl. Idiot, moron, prideful girl. Jaime shoved the blankets off himself and followed her tracks. She’d woken and needed to piss as every mammal did in the morning, and instead of waking him or waiting for him she’d  _ crawled through snow  _ to see to herself. 

 

She was in the trees only a few yards outside of camp, her hands cradled to her chest. She was leaning against a tree, her broken ankle held off the ground, her lips pressed tightly together. She was squinting in pain, and Jaime wanted to smack her. 

 

“What were you thinking?” he asked, marching to her. He got his stump behind her knees and the other under her shoulders and yanked her off her feet. She pushed at him. 

 

“Let go of me!” she said, but Jaime could tell her heart wasn’t in it. If it was, he’d be on his ass in the snow and she’d be standing over him ready to give him a kick. 

 

“No,” said Jaime. “You’re acting like a child, so I’ll treat you like one. You have two working hands and two working legs. You haven’t lost anything; if you rest and stay off your damn foot it’ll be fine. Instead you’re crawling through the snow in a godforsaken wolf-infested forest because you’re too damn proud to ask for help!” He dropped her on their blankets. 

 

“Did you ask for help when you lost your hand?” she asked. “Did you ask someone to lace your breeches or cut your meat?”

 

“Yes!” Jaime roared. “I had to; I asked for help because it was the only way I was going to get home! I wanted to get home more than I wanted my pride, wolf-bitch, and that’s a lesson I hope you learn real fucking quick.”

 

Jaime stomped to the horse, muttering all the while about foolish and stubborn Starks, girls who didn’t know what was good for them, and children who thought themselves invincible. When he tightened the saddle girth he did it so quickly that the big, normally mild-mannered gelding stomped hard, narrowly missing Jaime’s boot.

 

“Sorry, friend,” said Jaime, loosening the girth a hole. He patted the horse's neck and stood there for a moment, reflecting. Was he upset that Arya was foolish and stubborn? Not particularly. He himself was foolish and stubborn, and he appeared to attract other obstinate fools towards him like a magnet draws iron. 

 

“I think I’m angry that she doesn’t trust me,” he whispered to Redemption, stroking the velvety nose with his good hand. “Which is likely one of the most foolish things I’ve ever said, and I’ve said quite a bit. It’s the only things my siblings and I share in common: we jabber like old women.”

 

Arya sat in the snow, staring down at her lap, while Jaime readied the horse and brooded. He’d known the wolf-girl for how long? Two weeks? His family had destroyed hers, had driven her across the sea, and now he wondered why she hadn’t fallen into his arms? Not that he had two whole arms, and not that he wanted a fainting maiden.

 

That wasn’t it, and Jaime knew it. He was offended that she’d gone through all the bother of saving his life  _ twice  _ and yet couldn’t bring herself to ask the Kingslayer for help. She didn’t want his help; she didn’t want to be brought so low that she had to take aid from a man with shit for honor. She was Ned Stark’s daughter. 

 

May the gods deliver him from honorable women. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Thank you for taking a chance on this story of mine; I hope it doesn't disappoint. I adore both Arya and Jaime, and I'm fascinated with them together because both of them are deep in an identity crisis. 
> 
> Thank you to those of you who left comments on the first chapter. Art only feels alive when it's shared, so truly, thank you for sharing your thoughts with me. This story is near and dear to my heart. 
> 
> If you'd like to make predictions about the Game of Thrones endgame or yell about our favorite characters, I'm lonelyspacebabies on tumblr. Don't be shy :) Until next week! -Chris


	3. Vulnerabilities, Intimacies, and Other Human Failings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And so we begin to earn the E rating.

_ Dunsen. Gregor Clegane. Cersei Lannister. Ilyn Payne. Meryn Trant. Dunsen. Gregor Clegane. Cersei Lannister… valar morghulis.  _

 

Arya repeated her prayer to herself over and over as Jaime readied the horses. Each repetition of her list added another brick to the wall she’d built in her own mind. She didn’t know what she was hiding from any more; it was a habit too-long ingrained, a fear too deep to be named. She repeated her prayer, imagining herself in the cool depths of the House of Black and White, nearly able to feel the hard stone beneath her knees. 

 

“We’re going,” said Jaime. He hauled her up to her foot, rolled the pallet she’d been sitting on, and clumsily tied the roll behind the saddle. 

 

“Between the two of us we’re one functioning person,” said Arya as Jaime returned to boost her onto the horse. It was awkward, and the horse was tall. In the end he had crouch, get his shoulder between her legs, and then stand so that her arse was level with the saddle. It worked; she was able to swing her leg over so that she was astride.  _ He was strong _ , thought Arya. That move took strength and muscle control, and apparently Jaime Lannister, handless knight, had learned both in spades. 

 

She wished she could have seen him fight when he was whole. When they’d met years and years ago she’d been a child, happy with her siblings, and he’d been the Queen’s brother, good at looking pretty in fancy armor. 

 

He swung up onto the horse and took the reins. Arya was behind him today; it was easier on the horse for her to sit on the bedroll behind the saddle than to sit on the gelding’s neck. 

 

“What’s the horse’s name?” Arya asked as Jaime nudged him into a walk. 

 

“Why do you want to know?” asked Jaime. 

 

Arya wrapped her arms around Jaime’s waist for balance. “Because he’s a good horse,” she said. “He needs a name.”

 

Jaime sighed; Arya could  _ feel  _ his annoyance as well as hear it. She liked that. 

 

“I’ve been calling him Redemption,” said Jaime. “Since he’s just about the last thing I’ve got.”

 

Arya was surprised, surprised as she hadn’t been since completing her training as a Faceless Man: when one could taste the truth, not many surprises were left. Not only had he named his horse Redemption, he’d admitted as much to her. 

 

Clearly not wanting to continue that train of conversation, Jaime asked, “Since you’re so obsessed with names, does your sword have one?”

 

_ An echo up across the years: “Only cunts name their swords,” the Hound had growled.  _ Well, as Sandor had insisted, he was no knight. Here was one who understood. 

 

“Needle,” said Arya. 

 

Jaime  _ laughed,  _ Arya could feel his belly contracting as he chuckled. “Gods, that’s perfect,” he said. “You could honestly tell people you were practicing needlework.”

 

_ He got the joke.  _ Her heart soared. “Yes,” she said. “Jon gave it to me right before we left Winterfell. He said Sansa could have her needles, and I could have mine.”

 

She missed Jon; she missed Jon more than she missed Winterfell, because what would the stone keep be without him? He’d been the only one who’d ever looked at her and really  _ seen  _ her, and not only had he seen her, he’d accepted her for who she was. 

 

“It’s a good name,” said Jaime, urging Redemption into a rocking canter. “You’re probably the greatest seamstress alive.”

 

Arya would have shrugged if he could have seen her and if she didn’t need to hang on to him to stay on the horse. “There are probably better. A few,” she added. 

 

“Gods do you remind me of myself at seventeen,” said Jaime dryly. 

 

“I’m a girl,” said Arya without bitterness. “Girls can’t become Kingsguard.”

 

“No,” said Jaime, thoughtful. “But you aren’t the first to make me rethink that policy.”

 

“What about your sword?” asked Arya. Talking helped distract her from the pain of having her foot jolted against the horse. She could feel herself biting her lip again, could taste the coppery blood, and was thankful that Jaime was riding in front of her today. “Does it have a name?”

 

“No,” said Jaime after a pause that lasted a few beats too long. 

 

Arya understood; at least, she thought she did. As Jon had said, great swords needed good names. This particular sword hadn’t yet done anything name-worthy. “Well,” she said. “If the dead truly are walking, it will have plenty of chances to earn a name.”

 

“You’ve seen me fight,” said Jaime. “I doubt I’ll have a chance to do anything more than die nobly for a good cause.”

 

Arya didn’t have anything to say to that. He fought all wrong with his left arm. 

 

“Do you think you could teach me?” he asked, and Arya hated the hope in his voice. Nobody should have that kind of faith in her any more. She had no illusions as to what she’d become: she was a killer. She didn’t teach, didn’t cook or mend or tend a family. She killed, well and with pleasure. 

 

“I doubt it,” said Arya. “And besides- I won’t be in any shape to fight for months, according to you. I hope the dead are slow walkers.”

 

“I’ve trained before,” said Jaime, his voice tight. 

 

“Yes,” said Arya, her mouth replying before her brain could give any input. “But you did it all wrong.”

 

“Oh, and you’re such an expert?” 

 

He was angry now, hurt; Arya could hear it in his voice. “No,” said Arya. “But I’m better than you.”

 

Jaime changed tack. “How did you learn to fight?” He’d slowed the horse to a walk again, and Arya had to rest her forehead against his back to keep from whimpering. Her foot really had felt better propped up over Jaime’s legs; she was afraid to look down to see how much it had swelled since they set off on the horse.

 

“It started in King’s Landing,” said Arya, more than willing to revisit those memories even though they hurt. They’d been warm days, happy days. She’d had a pack and a teacher; she’d been away from her mother’s thin, unhappy lips and had been training away from Sansa’s perfect blue-eyed gaze. “My father found me practicing with Needle- just lunging around my chamber, really.” 

 

She’d cried when he’d told her that she would grow up to be a lady, and the next day he’d brought Syrio Forel. She’d been  _ seen.  _ “He found a Braavosi Water Dancer somewhere in the city. Syrio Forel, First Sword of Braavos. That’s where it started.”

 

The words were pouring out of her now. Jaime was a good listener; he wasn’t interrupting but Arya could feel that he was alert, paying attention. Briefly Arya wondered if his father or king or sister had ever realized that Jaime had been privy to most of the information and secrets in Westeros. Now he’d learn a few more. 

 

“When my father was taken I escaped through the cellars of the Red Keep. I lived in Flea Bottom- I was there in the crowd when Father was beheaded.” 

 

Did Arya imagine it, or had Jaime stroked her hand with his glove? It could have been the edge of his cloak, but it could have been his thumb.

 

“A man of the Night’s Watch found me. He was recruiting for the Wall. He chopped off my hair and called me ‘boy’. He was killed outside Harrenhal, where I went with the other captives. That’s where I met Jaqen, the Faceless Man. Then I escaped and rode with the Hound; then I escaped again and sailed to Braavos.”

 

“So what you’re telling me,” said Jaime slowly, “Is that you trained with a water dancer, a man of the Night’s Watch, Sandor Clegane, and then a group of Faceless assassins that nobody knows anything about?”

 

“Yes,” said Arya. 

 

“And I thought I was lucky to train with Ser Arthur Dayne,” said Jaime gloomily. 

 

“You were,” said Arya, not sure why she was worried about reassuring the Kingslayer. “What was it like? I used to pretend to be him,” she admitted. “I’d hide in the godswood at Winterfell and pretend to sword fight with a branch. I was always the Sword of the Morning or Queen Nymeria sailing to Dorne.”

 

“Bloodthirsty thing, weren’t you,” said Jaime. “Being Ser Arthur’s squire was… it was like serving a god. He was kind- that’s what I remember, when I think back. He always explained what he wanted from me, or explained why certain rules existed for knights. My father never did- he gave orders, and I was expected to obey them.”

 

Arya didn’t have anything to say to that. Her mother had been the same way, and in the House of Black and White...  well. She knew how that ended. Orders weren’t exactly Arya’s strong suit. 

 

They traveled along through mid-morning, only stopping to water the horse and to gnaw a little more of the dried meat and fruit that had become their only source of sustenance. Neither Arya nor Jaime had packed a bow they could use to hunt. 

 

After their mid-day break Jaime picked Arya back up, a shoulder between her legs, and slid her onto the horse. He swung up in front of her and they plodded on. They day was still sunny, but that last snowfall had brought even cooler weather. 

 

“Why did you fight for me?” Jaime asked, breaking the silence that had fallen between them. 

 

_ Because it wasn’t fair,  _ Arya thought.  _ Because when it mattered most, nobody asked you why you’d killed your king and tossed away your honor. Because you’ve been feared and hated and scorned as a Lannister and the Kingslayer, but how many people saw  _ you? 

 

That was true… but it wasn’t. He  _ was  _ awful, he’d lived up to everyone’s expectations as a man without honor or morals. And yet- what would have happened to that seventeen year old boy if her father hadn’t been the first one into the throne room? Or what if someone had asked him  _ why  _ he’d done it. Had anyone bothered to ask? 

 

“Arya?” Jaime asked. “Are you alright?”

 

She’d taken too long to reply. “I don’t know,” she lied. “It just felt like the right thing to do.” 

 

It was ...uncomfortable, thinking about this. Being Faceless was  _ easy.  _ She’d realized that just before she’d left, she’d finally recognized why people truly came to the House of Black and White. 

 

All came for mercy. The old and the sick, the beaten and abused came for a painless death and to be gently cleaned and laid to rest after the Many Faced God came for them. The acolytes… to be Faceless was truly  _ to be no one.  _ Faceless acolytes didn’t have histories and memories that distressed them. They didn’t have warring beliefs and obligations. They were vessels floating on a cool and peaceful sea, swept wherever Death wished them to go, and when Death brought the Gift to them, he would greet the acolytes as friends. 

 

That was the real issue with traveling with Jaime: she couldn’t stay Faceless around him. He was a Lannister, he was everything she was supposed to hate, and yet she didn’t find him terrible: she found him sad. Anger was easy, it felt productive. Hate was simple: she would find her enemies, and she would kill them, and when Death came for  _ her,  _ she would refuse to apologize for what she’d done. There was no  _ logic  _ to being Faceless, there was no doubt or empathy or- or humanity. 

 

At the end, that was it: the Faceless men had none of the frailties of humanity. 

 

There was a cost, of course. No lows meant no highs: there was no joy in the House of Black and White. There was no pride, no contentment, no laughter or soft touches. 

 

To top it all off, Arya had thrown it back in the face of the Many-Faced God. She’d taken his secrets and rejected his Facelessness, his service. Sometimes this kept her awake: it was terrible to feel a god stalking your shadow, but Arya would do it again, because truthfully death held no horrors for her now. 

 

Her pack was waiting for her in the shadowlands; she’d been left here alone, haunted by the ghosts of people who she could no longer hear. 

 

~~~

 

Arya spent the next day brooding on her lost Facelessness. This was worse, somehow, than having never been Faceless. Now she had the echoes of the faces that she’d worn floating in her head. Now that she’d known how it felt to be no one, to be in no torment, it only made her current situation even harder to bear. 

 

She wasn’t even enjoying the positive aspects of life. She was tired and hungry and in as much physical pain as she was in mental confusion.

 

Arya didn’t like doubting herself. She liked the clarity of a predatory mind, the wolf-mind from her dreams, not this… emotional morass of humanity. 

 

It started to snow again three days after Scraggly broke Arya’s ankle, and their pace of travel slowed once more. Driving snow made locating the sun difficult, which meant they couldn’t be sure they were still moving the right direction. They hadn’t found the Kingsroad again, so they couldn’t use the mile stones to see where they were. All they could do was huddle together in their cloaks and pray that they were still moving north. 

 

When Jaime helped Arya off Redemption that night she whimpered; her leg had gone numb in the cold but moving it brought it back to life, the burning pain of the broken bone combining with the pins and needles sensation of the cold. Jaime looked concerned, and when she was safely on the ground he licked the pad of his thumb and brushed it over her chin. 

 

His finger came away red; Arya had opened the scabbed wound on her lip again. 

 

“You need to stop doing that,” said Jaime. He wiped his finger on his trousers and wrapped an arm around Arya’s waist. She was used to this now, used to balancing against the firm length of Jaime as she hopped through the snow. He was steady, steadier than Arya had expected, and not for the first time she wondered how he’d been born a Lannister. 

 

“You need to visit the bushes?” asked Jaime. 

 

It was odd- he was more circumspect and polite about helping Arya in and out of camp to piss than she was. 

 

“Yes,” she said, flushing as she always did. This was  _ horrible.  _ This was worse than when she’d been stabbed by the Waif, because at least then she’d been mobile. It had hurt, sure, but she’d been able to move, even run. This injury, her stupid,  _ stupid  _ foot, had left her  _ dependent  _ on someone. 

 

Dependent on a Lannister, a handsome one twice her age. She knew how he sounded when he slept, she knew his scent, she knew the rhythm of his body and when he was cold or uncomfortable or in pain. She could live with that. What she was having trouble reconciling was that  _ he knew all of that about her.  _

 

Arya had been keeping secrets for her whole life. Robb lead, Sansa sewed, Jon brooded, Bran climbed, and Arya kept secrets. She knew that her mother and father fought about Jon, and that mother had wanted another baby. She knew that Sansa practiced kissing with Jeyne Poole. She knew that Robb and Jon would each sneak out to play with their cocks in the shadowy area behind the stables. 

 

Now she knew so much more. She’d been Roose Bolton’s cupbearer, collecting secrets that she’d never been able to use. She’d learned the Hound’s secrets, and Gendry’s, and everything she could from the Faceless Men. She’d dreamed her way into a cat and had scurried along the hall of faces deep beneath the temple, far below where acolytes were allowed to go. 

 

All along she’d kept herself apart from those around her, always looking to the next piece of information, to her next target, to the thing that would bring her one step closer to revenge. Jaime now knew more about her than anyone: where she’d been, pieces of what she’d learned, and now he knew  _ her,  _ Arya Stark, the short girl with the dark hair and calloused hands. 

 

Jaime helped Arya over to a low clump of holly bushes, still green despite the snow, and walked around to the other side, loudly whistling  _ The Dornishman’s Wife  _ while he took care of his own business. 

 

Arya brooded as he scooped her up and carried her back to Redemption. He did that sometimes, instead of waiting for her to hop on one foot. Arya was willing to accept that him carrying her was the faster solution, but… but. But she didn’t know how she felt about it. 

 

_ The memory of a willow switch slashing against Arya’s arm; the Waif’s voice proclaiming  _ Lie!

 

She knew how she felt about it. She liked it when he carried her like this, because she was  _ tired.  _ Holding herself upright against the pain on Redemption took energy. Not whimpering when her foot hit the horse’s flank took energy. Not falling so deep into her wolf-dreams that she forgot she was a human person took energy. Not thinking of her dead family, not remembering other people’s memories, not looking over her shoulder for a vengeful Many-Faced God… it was draining to be Arya Stark. 

 

She enjoyed the feeling of Jaime’s arms under her and balanced on one foot as he untied their bags and blankets from the saddle. He cleared snow off the grass for Redemption to graze and then returned to Arya. She set up camp as he gathered larger branches for the fire, and as had become their routine Arya set the flint and steel together. 

 

An...idea had been forming in Arya’s head since her ankle had been broken. She’d poked at the idea, brooded over it, and tried to push it out of her mind but it clung like a burr. 

 

She and Jaime should fuck. 

 

Arya watched him as he returned from the woods, dragging a couple big branches behind him, one stacked on top of the other. He was attractive, generally kind, and seemingly not given to raping. He didn’t mind that she wore breeches and carried a sword, and since he’d fathered three bastard children he’d know what he was doing.  

 

The way Arya saw it, if she was going to be stuck with all the painful downsides of being Arya Stark, she might as well try to find some good parts, too. 

 

She bided her time as they got the fire burning and ate the last of their dried meat and apples. Arya’s trousers already needed to be laced more tightly to keep them on her hips, and if they didn’t find a way to hunt soon, they’d be even looser when they reached Winterfell.  _ If  _ they reached Winterfell.  

 

Too quickly their food was gone, the night had fallen, and Jaime and Arya were huddled together under their blankets feeling like the last people alive in the world. Casually, acting like she’d done this a hundred times before, Arya said, “We should have sex.”

 

Jaime coughed- he better not be laughing. 

 

“You and me, staying warm. Fucking,” said Arya, clarifying. 

 

“Staying warm?” asked Jaime, grinning. “Is that what they call it in the north? Gods, no wonder old Ned managed to father six children.”

 

“Do you want to or not?” asked Arya, tipping her face back so that she could look up at Jaime while also looking down her nose at him. 

 

He raised one golden eyebrow. “Have you fucked before?”

 

“No,” she said, but cut off any protest he might make. “You said we’re going to an unwinnable fight. Do you want me to die a virgin?”

 

Jaime flopped back against the tree. “Why me, wolf-girl? You’ve been all over the world; surely you’ve found candidates more appealing than a one-handed man twice your age.”

 

Arya took the time to think that one through. She’d liked Gendry, but he’d rejected her. The only other men she knew were Faceless or complicit in the deaths of her loved ones. 

 

“Not really,” she said. 

 

“Tell me: do the Faceless Men make you swear to be celibate?” he asked. “I confess, I’ve been dying to know.”

 

“No,” said Arya. “As long as you don’t love them. No One cannot love.”

 

“That sounds incredibly dull,” said Jaime. 

 

“It’s incredibly peaceful,” said Arya, but she wouldn’t be distracted. “Do you want to fuck me or not?” Inside she was feeling… small, vulnerable, a grey mouse-girl that nobody noticed all over again. Was she truly so ugly? So unnatural? It was stupid of her to think that Jaime Lannister, even without a hand, would want to lie with a horsefaced girl. 

 

“Not particularly,” said Jaime. 

 

Ah. So she was that ugly. Sansa and Jeyne had been right. 

 

“Fine,” said Arya, rolling away from him. “Good night.”

 

They lay there together, listening to the howling of the wolves and the occasional  _ plop  _ of snow sliding off a tree branch. 

 

“Tell me this,” said Jaime. He’d turned so that his chest was pressed to her back, and his voice was gentle. “Why should I have sex with a half-starved, unbathed wolf-whelp? Why would you want a man twice your age with shit for honor? I’ve been used for convenience's sake before. I don’t relish the idea of playing the same role again.”

 

“I…” 

 

Arya fell back on her default response, which was to flummox someone with the truth. “I’ve been on my own for years. There was a boy… but he left me, and after that there was no one I could trust. You’ve been with me for weeks and you haven’t hurt me.”

 

“I doubt I could,” said Jaime dryly. 

 

They both knew the truth: she had to sleep sometime, and even with one hand his body was much heavier than hers. 

 

“Besides,” said Arya, pressing on, thankful that he couldn’t see her face. “You should fuck me to wash the taste of Cersei away.”

 

He stiffened and she held her breath, waiting to see what he’d do. 

 

“Does the whole kingdom know?” he asked, letting out a long sigh. It was warm on the back of Arya’s neck. 

 

“Not just the seven kingdoms,” said Arya. “They’re writing plays about it in Braavos.”

 

They lay quietly for a minute, Arya tense and nervous, then Jaime nuzzled into her hair and rested his forehead against the back of Arya’s skull. “She’s the only woman I’ve ever been with,” he said in a whisper. 

 

“I guessed as much,” said Arya. 

 

“She couldn’t say the same about me,” he said. “When I left King’s Landing after the meeting in the Dragon Pit I’d just learned that she was pregnant. My cousin Lancel’s baby,” he said. “Another Lannister; one that won’t shame Cersei with sentimentality or morals.”

 

“I wouldn’t have called Joffrey sentimental,” huffed Arya, and Jaime choked on laugh. 

 

“That he wasn’t. What a cunt.”

 

The paused, listening to the wind. 

 

“There’s something else you haven’t considered,” said Jaime. “A baby. You aren’t going to stand against the undead with a babe in your belly, are you?”

 

How humiliating for Arya to have to lay here and listen to the Kingslayer list all the reasons he didn’t want her. ‘No’ was a plenty sufficient answer!

 

“There are ways to keep from having a baby!” said Arya. 

 

“And how would you know?” asked Jamie, amused again.

 

“Because I wore the face of a girl brutalized by her father and sold to a whorehouse,” snarled Arya. “Because I heard the women in Harrenhal talking about it when they slept with Gregor’s soldiers, or when a raped girl ended up pregnant. I know how coupling works.”

 

Jaime was very still behind her. “Is that what you know of sex?” he asked. “Rape? Women trading their cunts for bread? The brutalities visited on brothel girls? That’s not sex, wolf-girl. Not even close.”

 

Arya rolled out of the blankets and forced herself to one foot in the snow, glaring down at Jaime’s startled green eyes. “Stop taunting me!” she said. “You said no! You don’t need to tell me how foolish and ugly I am;  _ I already know.”  _

 

Jaime squinted back. “I don’t think I said anything about you being ugly, but I’m getting ready to call you foolish. Get back under the covers before you freeze and ruin my maiden-saving streak.”

  
“What streak?”

 

Jaime waved away Arya’s question. “Get back under the covers, pup. I wasn’t done talking.”

 

“Don’t call me that! I’m not a dog!”

 

“No,” said Jaime, sitting up and glaring. “You’re soon to be a frozen bitch. Get back under the blankets you stupid girl.”

 

Ayra glared at him, and Jaime sighed. “I wasn’t trying to preserve your feelings,” he said. “I was trying to protect my own.”

 

Arya looked at him, full of suspicion, and then slid back under the blankets. She hissed when she knocked her ankle against Jaime’s shin, and then his warm hand closed around her calf and rested her leg on his. 

 

“Much better,” he said. “I’ll tell you straight, Arya.” 

 

He almost never used her name. 

 

“I’ve been with one woman, and that woman is my sister...  it took me thirty three years to realize that I’ve never been my own person. I was Tywin’s son, Cersei’s twin, or the Kingslayer. That’s my own doing,” he said. 

 

Arya was focused on the green of his eyes. Here in the dark with a dying fire and the moon for company they were pine colored, deep and steady. 

 

“When we left the parlay with the Targaryen girl I still thought Cersei would see reason. I thought I’d get to lead troops north. I thought I’d get to redeem myself…

 

“...but redemption- not the horse- isn’t that simple. I went into the Riverlands and fucked around playing at justice, playing at making myself feel better, and I still managed to bollock that up. After seeing the wight… the only thing I have left to do is carry a Valyrian steel sword north. The blade is worth more than I am, now, but someone can wield it after I’m gone.

 

“And I don’t think you’re ugly.” He smiled a little, the lines at the corners of his eyes crinkling. “Not in the least. You look just like your Aunt Lyanna; I almost called you her name several times in those first few days.”

 

“But Lyanna was beautiful,” said Arya, and she blushed at how small her voice sounded. She didn’t  _ care  _ if she was beautiful. She was strong and clever and dangerous. She was alive. Those things were more important that looks. 

 

“I know,” said Jaime. “I was there at the tourney where Rhaegar met Lyanna.”

 

“I want you because I like you,” Arya whispered, trading Jaime’s truths for one of her own. She studied the mail on Jaime’s leather shirt, avoiding Jaime’s gaze. She could look Death in the face, but not this. 

 

“Godsdammit, wolf-girl,” sighed Jaime, and then he kissed her. It was gentle, shockingly so. They both had tempers, and he was- well, he was the Kingslayer. He wasn’t supposed to be a gentle man. He dragged his slightly chapped lips side to side over hers, letting her enjoy the friction, and then his tongue leisurely swept over the seam of her lips. 

 

Was that supposed to happen? Arya had witnessed plenty of raping and fucking, but not much kissing. 

 

“Stop thinking,” Jaime commanded, his voice a rasp. He rose up on his elbow and bent over Arya, his lips on hers and his good hand in her hair. 

 

That made the buzzing thoughts slow. 

 

He tasted like apples, and he carefully, skillfully taught her to kiss, leading her mouth in two-step dance older than history. He was warm, and Arya enjoyed the way his teeth grazed over her lips, a little pinch added into the soft, wet heat into his mouth. His beard was rough against her chin, and she liked that too; the textures of him. Her fingers were exploring, playing in harmony to the melody of their mouths, following the warm skin of his neck down to the soft flannel of his shirt collar and from there over the hard, stiff leather and mail. 

 

He was a warrior, and so was she, and out in the northern wilderness, a hundred miles from anywhere, Jaime Lannister taught Arya to kiss. 

 

“This better not be out of pity,” Arya growled when they broke apart to gulp in air. 

 

“Fuck pity,” Jaime replied. He rolled so that his hips, hard and narrow, pressed into hers, wedging her thighs apart. His weight was…  _ exhilarating,  _ welcomed, sending little zings of heat through Arya’s blood. He was kissing her again, his mouth harder this time, his head cocked and lips slotted over hers. 

 

When Arya bit him he growled into her mouth and ground his hips into her.

 

Arya slid her hands off Jaime’s shoulders and down to her breeches, tugging frantically at her laces. When her trousers were loose and worked down her hips her hands went to Jaime’s, loosening his breeches and kissing him messily, wetly,  _ why was he so tall she couldn’t get to his mouth and cock at the same damn time.  _ That was the problem. 

 

He laughed when she whined at the difficulty she was having with his fucking pants but Arya was too focused on her task to care. “Do you know what you’re doing?” he asked, bending his head to look down his body at Arya’s busy fingers. 

 

“Yes,” she said, shoving the waistband of his pants down his hips and reaching inside the gaping material for his cock. 

 

She hadn’t seen many penises up close, but it looked like he had the standard set of parts. With her tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth Arya fisted his cock and slid her hand up and down, watching as a little bead of seed developed along the head. 

 

“Slow down, Arya,” said Jaime, sliding out of her reach. “Half the fun is in the anticipation.”

 

“The footwork,” said Arya. 

 

Jaime grinned. “Not everything is about fighting or speed, wolf-girl.”

 

It sounded nice when he purred it like that and she could feel the words rumble through his chest:  _ wolf-girl,  _ a caress and endearment all in one. Jaime shifted, rolling to the side and tucking the blankets around them again, wrapping them in a warm little cocoon. 

 

“Have you done this yourself?” he asked, sliding one calloused hand beneath all the layers of Arya’s clothes and rubbing it over the soft skin of her stomach. 

 

“Yes,” said Arya. “I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.”

 

His fingers had found the scar low on her belly, the thick pad of still-red tissue that had formed after she’d ripped the wound open a second time. He didn’t shy away from the mark but didn’t linger overlong. “Did it live up to expectations?” he asked, running his hand up to cup one breast over the band with which Arya had bound them. She didn’t have much in the way of tits, but what she did have needed to stay in one place. 

 

Arya wrinkled her nose. “Sort of,” she said. “It helped me sleep.”

 

Jaime was laughing when he kissed her again, and it tasted like sunshine. It wasn’t a mean laugh; Arya liked it. 

 

“It helps me sleep too, wolfling.” Jaime’s hand was sliding south now, his tanned skin dark against the fish-belly white of Arya’s stomach. He wiggled his fingers into her breeches and winnowed his hands through the curls covering her womanhood, teasing her. 

 

“Patience,” he told her, his fingers tapping over her cunt when she wriggled. 

 

She growled; he grinned. 

 

“Did you do this in your temple?” he asked, his fingers parting her. It was clumsy, but Arya didn’t care. It was already so much better than it had been the times she’d tried it. 

 

“Did you lay on your pallet and slide your fingers into your cunny to help you sleep?” Jaime asked, his index finger dipping inside her. 

 

Arya was blushing: finally someone had found something that she was loathe to say out loud. 

 

“You’re wet, little wolf,” Jaime whispered to her. “I think that’s a yes.”

 

He slid his hand out of her trousers and gripped her wrist, his fingers sticky against her skin. Jaime guided her hand into her own trousers. “Touch yourself,” he said. “Feel how wet you are?”

 

Arya nodded. She’d never been wet like _ this _ before, usually she was only a little sticky. 

 

“Good,” said Jaime. He took her wrist again, and this time guided it to his cock. “It feels so much better with sticky wolf-girl slick,” he told her. 

 

In the privacy of her own mind Arya was willing to admit that no, she  _ hadn’t  _ actually known what she was getting into, but she wouldn’t take even a moment of it back. This was wicked, this was fun, this was adrenaline-pumping and warm and free.

 

She wrapped her fingers around Jaime’s cock and slid her hand up and down, up and down. 

 

“Just a little harder,” said Jaime, sliding his hand into Arya’s breeches once more. 

 

He found her little nub, the thing Theon had called a  _ clit,  _ and circled there, matching the rhythm Arya was using on his cock. She was moaning now, just a little, and her hips were rocking into Jaime’s hand. 

 

He closed his eyes and lowered his forehead to rest on her hair. “ _ Gods,  _ Arya. How have you not done this before?”

 

She keened. It felt so much better with his big fingers, with her own wetness, with the smell of sex and the heaviness of his cock in her hand.

 

“Jaime-” the word fell from her lips like a prayer. 

 

“Hush,” he said, kissing her. When she whined her way to completion with her limbs trembling and stars whizzing along the back of her eyelids he swallowed her mewls and adulation like wine. 

 

When her eyes flickered open she watched Jaime pull his hand from her trousers (shiny and sticky with her come) and wrap around his cock over hers. 

 

His eyes were hot; the green of high summer, gold flecked like the grass of a savannah where lions prowled. “See what you do to me?” he said, his voice rough and low. Together they stroked his cock, and Arya had never felt more like a woman. He was hard for  _ her.  _

 

When he came he cupped the end of his cock, and Arya wondered if that’s what she was supposed to do, and when his hand came away a little string of seed followed.  _ Oh-  _ he was being tidy. There were no washerwomen between here and Winterfell. 

 

He wiped his hand in the snow, but not before Arya had dipped a finger in it and stuck it in her mouth. 

 

Jaime groaned, deep and heartfelt. “Do you have any shame?” he asked. 

 

“No,” said Arya immediately. Everything she’d done had been to keep herself alive or happy; where was the shame in that? Besides, his seed was salty and bitter and warm. It wasn’t as bad as he made it sound. 

 

He pressed a quick kiss to her forehead. “Do yourself up. Come to think of it, do me up as well.”

 

Arya obligingly tucked his now-soft cock (fascinating, how did it work, how fast could it change? If she ever got him into a bed somewhere warm she’d find out) into his breeches and loosely laced them up. She did the same to herself, feeling peculiarly shivery and sleepy and affectionate all at the same time. 

 

“No wonder people make such a bother over coupling,” said Arya. 

 

“Yes,” said Jaime, amused again. His eyes twinkled, like the sun off a warm, hidden pond. Arya hadn’t noticed before. 

 

He yanked the blankets off of them and stood as Arya yelped at the cold. “Up you get, pup,” he said. “It isn’t all fun and games.”

 

“What are you doing?” Arya asked as he tugged her to her feet and scooped her up. 

 

“Taking you somewhere we can piss. The maester told me long ago that a piss after coupling flushes out the bad humors, and since the gods haven’t struck me down or rotted my cock off, I assume it works. It’s good for you, too.”

 

Arya dutifully peed, amused at Jaime’s mood. He was whistling jauntily, and even though Arya’s teeth were chattering when he deposited her back in camp he insisted on relighting the fire and boiling more snow. 

 

“You’re joking,” said Arya when he told her to unlace her breeches.

 

“Nope,” said Jaime. “I certainly am not. Drop them. I may sleep with a wolf, but she’s not going to be a sticky, feral creature.”

 

“I’ll freeze,” Arya protested, embarrassed and confused. Why couldn’t he have just let her go to sleep? 

 

Jaime snapped the rag out; it cracked Arya in the thigh. 

 

“Fuck!” she said. 

 

“Come here,” said Jaime. “This is a part of it. Besides, the warmth will feel good.” 

 

Blushing crimson, sure that they could have used her cheeks as a lantern, Arya unlaced her breeches with cold fingers. 

 

“Uh-huh,” said Jaime. “Now drop them.”

 

That’s how Arya came to be standing bare-arsed somewhere in the Neck with Jaime Lannister washing her sex. 

 

“You shouldn’t be enjoying this,” she said. “This is strange. I’ve never heard of this; nobody else does this.”

 

Jaime was unperturbed. “You wanted to couple with me,” he said. “This is part of the package. Besides, virgin-girl, you don’t know what people do and do not do.”

 

Arya opened her mouth to interrupt him, but he didn’t let her. “I already told you, Stark. Rapers and whores don’t count.” His voice was as unbendable as Valyrian Steel; this was not a topic open to debate. 

 

Arya wanted to say something about the Queen. She wanted to hiss,  _ Oh, and you’re such an expert sisterfucker? You, who have only slept with one woman? _

 

Arya didn’t say it. It was hateful, it wasn’t fair, and she didn’t know why that was her reaction. 

 

_ Liar! _

 

She knew why this made her uncomfortable. This wasn’t bodies- she knew about bodies, fighting was about bodies. This… softness, the  _ caretaking,  _ this was the intimacy that could shatter a girl’s Facelessness forever.  _ This  _ was why the Faceless Men could find their pleasure, but couldn’t find it in emotion. 

 

When Jaime rinsed the cloth out Arya tugged her pants up and said, “Thank you.”

 

“It’s my job,” said Jaime, turning Arya so she’d look at him. “Wolf- Arya- if a man isn’t willing to take care of you afterwards, he likely wasn’t worth the effort in the first place.”

 

Arya nodded. She didn’t trust herself to open her mouth. 

 

Jaime passed the warm rag to her. “Now you do me,” he said. 

 

Arya washed Jaime, fascinated all over again by the softness of his cock, the coarseness of his hair, and the soft, pendulous balls beneath it all. Jaime indulged her exploration for a time, but when they both had teeth chattering so hard it rendered speech nearly impossible, he tossed the rag away and tugged them down into their nest of blankets.

 

“Good night, Arya,” he said, wrapping himself around her back. 

 

“Good night, Jaime,” she replied. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp! That happened! I just love these two. 
> 
> Thank you to those who left kudos and comments; writing is a lonely endeavor and you've all brightened my week SO much. I deeply appreciate it! 
> 
> If you'd like to chat about... pretty much anything, I'm caseydoesfandom on twitter and pillowfort. Come say hi!


	4. Redemption

Jaime had woken with his face buried in soft hair more times than he could count. This morning, however, he wasn’t in Cersei’s chambers at Casterly Rock and he wasn’t in the Queen’s Apartments in the Red Keep. He was in the crystalline wonderland of the Neck, and the hair tickling his nose was short and dark. They’d slept through the night without being woken by wolves, and Arya hadn’t spent her slumbers twitching and dreaming like an actual puppy. 

 

He needed to piss, he needed to melt snow for a drink, but for the moment he was content to remain wrapped around his-  _ the,  _ not  _ his-  _ wolf-girl. 

 

Why the fuck had he pleasured her? Even more, why had he taught her to pleasure  _ him?  _

 

Arya jerked once and sat up and out of Jaime’s arms, fully awake. She always woke like that, just like he did. They didn’t need that moment of questioning  _ who am I? Where am I? Am I the same person who fell asleep the night before?  _ Like so many others did. They both woke up ready for whatever the day would bring. 

 

“Morning,” said Arya, stretching her arms up over her head and leaning from side to side. 

 

“Good morning,” said Jaime. He used the banked embers of the fire to light another branch and gathered fresh snow for the pot. When they got back from seeing to the call of nature, it would hopefully be water. 

 

He scooped Arya up, and it was like last night hadn’t happened. She was as light and compact as ever, and she didn’t chatter or blush or kiss him. He didn’t know if he liked that or not. In some ways Jaime wished that she’d acknowledge what happened between them, because in the light of morning, it felt an awful lot like Jaime had broken another vow. 

 

They broke camp as they always did, and once they were underway Jaime brooded while Arya seemed to be as enigmatic as always. Was she holding him tighter? Perhaps. Was she resting her head against his back for longer and longer amounts of time? Yes. Did it mean anything? Only the gods knew. 

 

By mid-afternoon the woods thinned and trailed away altogether, leaving Arya and Jaime riding across barren, snow-covered rolling hills. They were in the Barrowlands, and far in the distance they could see the mile markers of the Kingsroad jutting out of the snow like teeth. 

 

Arya tried to start a conversation a few times, but Jaime was too hungry (they’d finished their meager supplies the previous evening) and conflicted to talk. He’d forsaken Cersei years ago, but actually  _ acting  _ on it was different. And who had he picked to be the second woman he’d ever touched like that?  _ Ned Stark’s daughter.  _

 

It hadn’t been pity. He hadn’t lied about that. It had been… he really didn’t know. Jaime worried that he’d wanted Arya because she reminded him so much of himself at seventeen, dreaming of glory in battle and upholding honor and proving her family’s expectations wrong. 

 

_ Your vanity has no limits, Lannister,  _ he thought to himself. 

 

Arya pinched him and Jaime jumped. “Fuck, wolf-bitch!” he said. “What was that for?”

 

“I’ve been talking to you and you aren’t paying attention!” she said. Her voice was muffled when she rode behind him. 

 

“What?” he snapped. 

 

“There’s a storm coming, and we need to find somewhere to ride it out.”   
  


Jaime studied the horizon, and sure enough heavy, charcoal-grey clouds roiled on the northern horizon. 

 

“Fuck,” he said. “You ought to know- are there any rock formations up here? Any stands of trees? We have to find a wind break.” 

 

“No,” said Arya. “There’s only one thing I can think of.”

 

He felt her lean around him so she could look forward. “See that big hill up ahead? Head there.”

 

The wind was stronger when they arrived at the base of the circular hill. “Now what?” asked Jaime. 

 

“Now you get down and draw your sword,” said Arya. “These are barrows; they’re old graves that were built by men.”

 

Oh no. Jaime had a horrible premonition about just what she was suggesting. “You can’t mean to sleep with dead men, Arya,” he said. 

 

“Do you have a better idea? Because I don’t, and we’ve come too far to freeze to death.” 

 

Good point. Jaime slid off the horse and drew his sword. “Now what, m’lady,” he asked in a drawl. 

 

“Now you walk around the base of the barrow and stick your sword into the hill at waist height. There should be a door.”

 

They walked, her guiding Redemption, and Jaime slogging along, sticking his sword into the snow-covered hill every few feet. He was surprised that it was stone; he’d always assumed that the Barrows were only formed earth. 

 

Over halfway around the hill his sword sank in deep, no stone giving him resistance. “We’ve found the door,” he said, kicking snow away.  

 

“Good. Help me down, would you?”

 

He lifted Arya down from the horse and together the kicked and scraped snow off the grass-covered section of hill. “Can you kick it in?” Arya asked, looking up at Jaime. 

 

Finally. Finally he could save the girl, and in a stroke of narrative harmony she was a maiden, too. Jaime sheathed his sword, planted his left boot in the snow, and set the other to the grass-covered door. The blow was solid, rattling away clumps of dirt and reverberating up Jaime’s bones. It felt good; Jaime had spent his life taking hits and giving then, moving with the momentum, and he set his boot to the door again. 

 

It was the Goat, arrakh raised. It was the bear over Brienne; Areys with his pyromancers, Tywin mocking Tyrion, and Cersei’s mocking smile. If this was his fight, so be it. 

 

Eventually the ancient, sodden wood crumbled in, and Jaime had to catch his balance before tumbling after it. Snow was just starting to fall, and a draft of dead, stale air wafted out of the hollow hill. 

 

“We need to go in,” said Arya, leaning against Redemption’s shoulder. 

 

“I’ll go first,” said Jaime. Arya looked like she wanted to argue, but since he could at least run and she couldn’t, he won by default. 

 

It was dark and dry in the barrow. The tallest point of the dome was nearly twice Jaime’s height, and as far as he could see there was no sign of a dead king. There wasn’t much sign of anything. He walked back to the entrance and knocked out a few more pieces of wood; they’d need to be able to fit Redemption in as well. 

 

“It’s fine,” he told Arya, scooping her up and carrying her inside. He set her down by the far right wall, wanting her out of the way in case Redemption was reluctant to come inside. He needn’t have worried; he was a good horse. 

 

It didn’t take long to pack snow over the doorway to block the wind, and within a few minutes Redemption had slowly lowered himself to the floor to nap across from Arya and Jaime’s blanket nest. 

 

It was still cold, but it was warmer than they’d been in days. It would have been comfortable, but it was dark. Pitch dark, cave dark, darker than anything Jaime had seen. He could hear Redemption snoring, he could hear Arya breathing, and he could hear his own heart pounding in his ears. 

 

“I wish we could light a fire,” he commented, resting his cheek on Arya’s head. At least here at the end of the civilized world he wasn’t alone. 

 

Actually- he’d never been alone. Even when he’d been out of his mind with fever, even when he’d  _ wanted  _ to die, he’d had Brienne; he’d had those fucking blue eyes watching him, forcing him to live.

 

Arya… Arya had experienced aloneness. Despite the immense depths of Jaime’s capability for self-pity, he had to admit that Arya’s story was forcing him to put his own life in perspective. He’d always had people who loved him, one way or another. 

 

“We’d choke on smoke,” said Arya, dragging Jaime back to the here-and-now.

 

“We could open the door back up again.”

 

“It would get colder.”

 

“Are you always this contrary?”

 

“...sometimes. When I’m talking with someone stupid.”

 

“You didn’t think I was stupid last night.”  _ No, but you’re being stupid  _ now, thought Jaime to himself.  _ Idiot.  _

 

He felt Arya shrug against him. “That was then. Now you’re being stupid.”

 

Oh, he was. He was acting like a lovesick boy who’d been scorned by the object of his affections. Not that Jaime would know- he’d slipped into Cersei’s bed at seven and into her cunt at ten. He’d never been lovesick over another girl; had never been lovesick at all. He had the heart of the most beautiful girl in the kingdom. Who could want more?

 

That was the problem. He’d promised nothing to Cersei, and yet his unspoken promise to her was the only one  _ he’d never broken.  _ He’d never fucked another; never kissed another, and last night he’d done- well, most of those things. 

 

“What if we cut a hole in the ceiling?” 

 

Arya was still thinking about a fire. “Wouldn’t it just let even more snow in?” said Jaime.

 

“I don’t think so,” said Arya. “It would be a smaller hole, at least.”

 

Jaime didn’t care. Even if they did get a fire started they’d still starve to death. Freezing was supposed to be gentler. “And how do you propose we do this?” he asked. 

 

“I’ll sit on your shoulders and cut it with your sword,” she said. 

 

So far on this trip his sword had killed zero men, been used to cut down a tree, shred bark, find an opening into an ancient barrow, and now it was to be a glorified shovel.  _ Father, if only you could see your gift now.  _

 

“Don’t stab me,” Jaime warned. 

 

“If I stabbed you, I’d be doing it on purpose,” said Arya in the dark. She laughed then, sudden and bright. “Your heart sped up,” she said. “Do you really think I’d stab you?”

 

“No,” said Jaime. “You can hear my heart beating? What did they  _ do  _ to you in invisibility school?”

 

“They blinded me,” said Arya simply. 

 

“What?” She could see, he knew she could see. She probably meant blind _ folded  _ her. 

 

“Blinded me. They gave me a poison that made me blind for… several months. It’s hard to keep track of time when you’re blind. I’m okay in the dark, but you aren’t. That’s alright.”

 

She was telling him not to be afraid of the dark. This eerie northron  _ child  _ was telling the Kingslayer not to be afraid of the dark. He could practically hear Tyrion laughing about it already. 

 

“One of these days I really wish you’d explain  _ any  _ of the stories you start,” groused Jaime. He felt her hands on his shoulders, tugging him down. He knelt (his knees creaking, he isn’t as young as was, and winter was  _ cold)  _ and Arya awkwardly swing her bad leg over his right shoulder, then her left leg onto the other. She gripped his forehead for support, and Jaime realized she didn’t weight much more than a child. Her energy, her skill, her  _ fury  _ made her seem so much bigger than she was. 

 

(Brienne’s humility, shyness, and naivety had made her feel smaller by the time they’d parted ways.) 

 

It was awkward to rise, but he did it and carefully-  _ carefully-  _ passed her the sword. Jaime didn’t have much vanity left (well, more than a little) but he did like his face the way it was. 

 

He nearly fell when Arya stabbed up at the ceiling the first time; she jolted and threw him off balance. “Gods balls, wolf-girl, warn me!”

 

“Kingslayer, Lion of Lannister, Oh exalted one, I’m going to stab the fucking ceiling, so brace your pretty self.”

 

Jaime pinched her thigh,  _ hard,  _ and enjoyed the yelp he earned as a reward. Arya grumbled as she hacked at the dirt roof overhead, her mutterings blending together. 

 

Soon enough clods of earth began to patter onto Jaime’s head, followed by a few lazy snowflakes. 

 

“Good enough,” said Arya, tapping him on the side of the head. Jaime supposed that was his cue to put her down. 

 

The air hole didn’t make it any lighter in the Barrow, so the two of them groped on the floor until the wooden door scraps were gathered together. Carefully Jaime located the flint and steel and passed them to Arya, who, sure as anything, lit it on her first try. 

 

The sparks were shockingly bright, the flames nearly blinding, and Arya’s face was the first thing Jaime saw.  She was looking into the fire, her eyes mirror-blank again, and Jaime wondered what memories the dark held for her. 

 

“Arya?” he asked.

 

She scooted around to sit by him, and then, to Jaime’s shock, crawled into his lap. She  _ felt  _ small, now, with her head tucking comfortably under his chin. He’d had women proposition him, he’d had men and women  _ both  _ grab various parts of him, but never in his five and thirty years had he had a girl crawl into his lap and just… cuddle there. 

 

If Cersei had ever done this he’d have called for the maester. Even in her birthing bed she’d been hissing and angry and aloof, furious that pain and indiginity were women’s lot in life. 

 

Almost timidly Jaime stroked up and down Arya’s spine. He could feel the nubs of her vertebra pressing against her skin, and her muscles were hard and tense. “Wolf-girl?” he asked. 

 

“What if, when we get there, he doesn’t love me anymore?”

 

Jaime’s hand paused on her back before resuming it’s slow, soothing motion. He didn’t need to as who ‘he’ was: she’d only ever showed interest in Jon Snow, while Jaime had briefly considered the idea that Snow and Arya had enjoyed the kind of relationship he’d had with Cersei, Jaime had come to understand that ti was different from that. 

 

The Stark bastard had given her her sword, one outcast to another. He’d believed in her. 

 

When Jaime had been wandering back to King’s Landing, half out of his mind with pain and fever and the loss of his hand, the only thing that had kept him moving, slogging through his nagging wish to die, had been the idea that he’d see Cersei again. Arya had been waiting to see Snow for  _ five years.  _ She’d been clinging to the idea of family through gods knew what, and now they were less than a fortnight from home. 

 

(Granted, they might starve or freeze to death before they made it. But at least they were close.)

 

“Why wouldn’t he love you?” asked Jaime. 

 

Arya half shrugged, her shoulder digging into Jaime’s chest. “I’ve done bad things,” she said. “And I don’t regret them. It makes people look at me differently. And I  _ am  _ different,” she said, half to herself. “Boy, Weasel, mouse-girl,  _ wolf-girl. _ So many mes.” 

 

Jaime pressed his cheek to the top of her head and sighed. “After I killed Aerys, everyone looked at me differently, everyone but Tyrion. Of course, not everyone hated me,” he said, remembering his family. “Father and Cersei saw me as more of a man. They were right- breaking vows is a fast way to grow up. They thought I was finally acting like a Lannister, like the golden son of the House that had washed away Castamere forever. Everyone else… 

 

“It was your father who found me in the throne room. He judged me then, with Aery’s blood still dripping from my sword. He wanted me to take the Black, as did Robert, as did most of the Kingdom. Jon Arryn talked them out of it…” Jaime’s voice trailed off, lost in the past. 

 

“But not one of them asked me why I did it, wolf-girl. To this day, nobody asked my why I slew my king.”

 

Her voice was a whisper, smoke dark, honey sweet:  _ Jaime, why did you kill the king? _

 

Jaime buried his nose in Arya’s hair and took a deep breath. “Because he’d ordered his pyromancers to hide staches of Wildfire all over King’s Landing, enough wildfire to burn the city seven times over. That night, when the army was approaching, he started to scream- gibber, really.  _ Burn them all!  _ He cried.  _ Burn them, burn them all! _

 

“Half a million people, wolf-girl. I’d sworn to protect the innocent, and King’s Landing held half a million souls innocent of all but being born poor. Where was honor that night, wolf-girl? Were half a million lives less important that one insane king’s?

 

Arya stroked Jaime’s cheek, and he realized he was crying. He’d broken once in water. Now he’d broken by fire. He turned his face into Arya’s hand and kissed her palm, thankful for the comfort she’d extended. 

 

“Nobody ever asked, and I couldn’t bring myself to tell. Not after father’s men presented Elia’s body wrapped in Lannister red, her babes dead at her feet. No one would have believed me.”

 

“I do,” said Arya. 

 

_ Of course you do,  _ Jaime thought, trying to find his next words.  _ You and I are cut from the same cloth, Stark, but one of us is northron, the other is not.  _

 

“When it was done- when I’d been pardoned and allowed to don my white armor again- it was only Tyrion who’d meet my eyes. It was only Tyrion who was never bothered or pleased by my new title: Kingslayer, Oathbreaker, Man Without Honor.

 

“Jon will love you, Arya.” He could already feel her protest forming. “And if he doesn’t, he didn’t love you in the first place. He only loved the idea of you.”

 

He hoped she’d see that truth for what it was: a lesson that had taken Jaime Lannister a full and painful lifetime to learn. 

 

Most women would have cried or slapped him or shivered. Arya relaxed at Jaime’s blunt truth, soothed by his lack of artifice. 

 

He cuddled her closer. “I won’t judge you, pup. Life takes something from all of us, and doesn’t leave us much choice in the matter. I can’t think of another girl- or boy-” he appended, remembering himself at twelve,  “Who’d survive what you survived, let along come out the victor. You were hammered on the Smith’s anvil, Arya, and you didn’t crack. You turned to steel, Valyrian steel. You’ve a little magic in you, and a little bit of something else as well.”

 

Arya was quiet for a long moment after that, letting Jaime’s words settle inside her. For his part, Jaime was enjoying just… holding someone. Cersei allowed him to wrap around her for a while after they fucked, but she was too… venomous for soft touches, too unwilling to feel vulnerable or small or female.  

 

“That’s why I saved you,” Arya whispered, and Jaime felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end once more. “I’d asked everyone why you’d killed Aerys. I even asked my father why he was mad about it, because it meant his friend Robert could be king. Nobody knew why you’d done it, and …”

 

She huffed out a sigh. “I wondered how it would have changed you, to have everyone assume you were less than a hedge knight, less trustworthy than any other man. I wondered if you were an arse before you killed the king, or if killing the king made you an arse.”

 

“I didn’t need any help in being a little prick,” said Jaime. 

 

Arya ignored his comment. “I just thought someone should give you the benefit of the doubt, is all.”

 

“Oh, wolf-girl,” he whispered, resting his cheek on her hair again.

 

This was what redemption felt like: not self-congratulation, not false justice. Redemption was recognizing mercy when it was extended to you, and recognizing that it was mercy undeserved but freely given. 

 

~~~

 

Arya dreamed of the hunt. Her thoughts were sharp, and clear, and simple. She was hungry, so she ran, her nose in the wind. Her body worked perfectly, efficiently, and she loped through the snow with her pack ranged behind her. She smelled man-flesh, horse-flesh, deer-flesh. The deer was close, and without a sound the pack split,  calculating, knowing where each and every wolf was without conscious effort. 

 

The buck ran, leaving hoofprints in the snow. The wolves chased- a rush of hunger, of bloodlust, of instinct. Blood in her mouth, hot and wet, water and sun combined. 

 

Hunger elsewhere, a softer body, need. Dragging, snarling, blood smeared over snow. 

 

Digging. 

 

Arya awoke with the coppery taste of blood in her mouth to the sound of something digging at the snowpack over their door. Jaime was awake and reaching for his sword, but before he could raise it a huge wolf burst into the barrow, dragging a dead deer between its front paws. 

 

“Get behind me,” said Jaime, thumping his gold hand against Arya stomach and trying to push her behind him. 

 

“No,” said Arya, struggling. She knew the wolf’s yellow eyes, she knew that silver-grey coat. “Nymeria?” Arya asked, her voice high and childish in her own ears. 

 

The wolf’s ears pricked. “Is that you, girl?” asked Arya, ignoring Jaime’s curses. She stepped towards the huge wolf, its snout even with Arya’s chin, one hand outstretched. 

 

“Losing a hand isn’t as much fun as it looks, Stark,” hissed Jaime. Arya ignored him again. 

 

“I’m sorry I chased you away,” Arya whispered, slowly letting her fingers sink into the thick mane of fur over the wolf’s neck- not the wolf, the  _ direwolf.  _ Winter came, and a direwolf found itself a pack and survived. 

 

Arya remembered her father’s words: the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives. Wolves were panting and barking outside in the dark; this was Nymeria’s pack,  _ Arya’s  _ pack, the one from her dreams. 

 

Nymeria slowly blinked her yellow eyes and lowered her head to butt against Arya’s arm. She smeared blood over Arya’s tunic, but Arya didn’t care. 

 

“What northron witchcraft is  _ this?”  _ Jaime asked, and Arya turned to explain, but as she did the wolf left, her paws silent on the barrow floor, her silvery tail disappearing into the snowy night outside their hill. The wolf-sounds faded, the sound of crunching snow ceased, and Arya and Jaime were alone again, safe in their burial mound under the snow. 

 

Redemption was stamping and nervous in the corner; all his instincts had told him to  _ beware of wolves,  _ but his people were here, and he was a good horse. 

 

Arya collapsed to her knees, sobbing. She was crying at the memory of Nymeria’s face that day by the trident when Arya had driven her away to keep her safe. She was crying for a little girl who had sailed alone across the sea to avoid her House’s enemies and to learn the skills she’d need for revenge. She was crying for the present girl, the one who had just seen her childhood friend only to lose her again; to lose her because a direwolf was never a pet, it couldn’t be tamed, and Nymeria wasn’t Arya’s but her own. 

 

_ The direwolves live,  _ Arya thought as Jaime’s arms wrapped around her. She turned into his shoulder and cried, her tears hot, nearly scalding on her face.  _ The lone wolf dies but the pack survives, and I am a wolf with no pack.  _

 

“I’ll be your pack,” Jaime whispered into Arya’s hair, and she realized she’d spoken aloud. “And you can be my pride.”

 

He let her cry herself out without asking for any explanation, and as her sobs turned to hiccups and then to sniffles, Arya tried to remember when she’d last cried. Not when she’d broken her ankle. Not when the Waif had stabbed her, and not when the kindly man had taken her sight. 

 

It had been with the Hound, at the Red Fork. She’d watched as Grey Wind’s head was sewn to Robb’s body, and she’d howled her grief into a sky made red with the reflection of funeral fires. She’d been thirteen. 

 

“That was the wolf that bit Joffrey,” said Jaime slowly. “By the Trident. I was sent to hunt for it- and you.”

 

“I chased her away,” said Arya, her voice thin. “I knew Cersei would do something horrible to her, so I threw stones at her until she ran away. I’ll never forget the look she gave me… when I started to dream about wolves I thought it was just me wishing for her.

 

“No, that’s not true either,” Arya amended. “I could dream wolf-dreams, and when I was in Braavos- when I was a blind beggar girl- I dreamed my way into a cat. I could see with her eyes. I just… I couldn’t believe I was dreaming wolf-dreams from an ocean away.”

 

“You’re a skinchanger,” said Jaime, his voice low. 

 

“No- well. I guess,” said Arya. “I don’t understand it, and I’ve only done it when I was asleep or when I was blind and afraid of being beaten again. I didn’t think it  _ counted.”  _

 

Jaime was shaking his head. “Just when I foolishly think I’ve begun to understand you,” he said. “Why did she come to you tonight?”

 

“I was hungry,” said Arya slowly. “She-we- were hunting, and I was excited about eating. She brought us a deer,” said Arya, looking down at the young buck bleeding on the floor of the barrow. “But I don’t know what to do with it.”

 

Jaime grinned at her. “Finally, something I know and you don’t,” he said. “You make maiden saving quite difficult, you know.”

 

“Well, there are a  _ few  _ things you know,” said Arya with an almost shy smile. 

 

“We have to bleed the deer first,” said Jaime. Tears abated by not forgotten, Jaime and Arya set to work. 

 

Butchering the deer was a messy business. It had to be drained, and the best Jaime and Arya could manage was to slit its throat and lay it out over the steepest part of the dome in the driving snow. That only worked for a while, because before too long the blood began to freeze. Eventually they had the deer skinned and clumsily hacked into chunks of meat. Arya asked Jaime to leave the carcass outside in case the wolves returned; it was only fair that they could get their share. 

 

They used their swords as spits, and soon enough the smell of roasting meat filled the barrow. Arya’s mouth was watering, and sometime during their bloody midnight business her emotions had evened out once more. She felt… lighter, cleaner, and only a tiny bit ashamed that her collapse had been witnessed. She pulled little leather pouches from her bag: salt and ground Dornish pepper; the Hound had taught Arya that if you could steal them, spices would make just about anything you could catch palatable. They ate happily, contentedly, each sucking the meat drippings off their fingers and grinning like fools. 

 

It was only the slightest bit cool in the barrow; the burning fire had finally warmed up the space. “I want a bath,” Arya commented. 

 

“In what?” teased Jaime. “In our pot? Can you shrink yourself as well as make yourself invisible?”

 

“No,” said Arya. “But we could heat water and I could wash all the bits you missed before.”

 

“Fine,” said Jaime. “But I get to wash, too.”

 

They went through their snow-melting routine, waiting for the pot to begin to steam in the cool air. Arya was excited to be clean. She’d been accustomed to bathing beneath the House of Black and White daily; the Many Faced God preferred cleanliness in his followers. Gone was the girl who’d fight Catelyn when she tried to wash Arya’s face. Adult Arya enjoyed being clean. 

 

When the water began to steam Arya rose and stripped off her tunic and shirts and breastband. She sighed with satisfaction when  _ that  _ came off; it had been digging into her for weeks, and where it had been angry red lines remained indented on her skin. 

 

Jaime stroked his hand along Arya’s side, his fingertips lingering over the marks. “When the war is done,” he said. “I’m going to finally put my sword to good use and shred this thing.”

 

“I’ll just get another one,” said Arya, dunking the rag into her water and closing her eyes as she ran the cloth over her neck. Warm water trickled down Arya’s back and collarbone and she shivered at the sensation. “Breasts just get in the way when you’re fighting.”

 

“They don’t seem to slow you down,” commented Jaime. 

 

Arya ignored him and kept washing. It was… peculiar, doing this in front of him. Washing usually felt like a chore, just something she did before bed: wash, tooth powder, recite names, sleep. Washing had never made her feel hot and shivery inside.  _ That  _ must be caused by Jaime’s eyes on her. 

 

Earlier- when he’d held her, when she’d been crying like a motherless babe ( _ which you are,  _ a mean little voice reminded her) Jaime had offered to be Arya’s pack. She’d made that offer years ago: she’d been smaller, her hair shorter, and she’d been yelling at a blacksmith.  _ I don’t have a family.  _

 

_ I could be your family!  _

 

He’d turned her down, preferring to stay with a bunch of stupid, smelly, used-to-be knights instead of her. Of course they’d sold him, and gods only knew what the Red Woman had done to him. Probably his heart was floating in a jar somewhere. 

 

Jaime…  _ he’d  _ been the one to suggest it this time. He’d been the one to say he’d be her pack, to stay with her. That’s all Arya wanted. It had been Sansa who’d dreamed of marriage and  _ babies  _ and handsome southron men and their pretty southron castles. Arya had just wanted someone who would see her and accept her and run with her. 

 

Briskly Arya re-donned her shirt and awkwardly wrestled her way out of her stockings and breeches without bothering her ankle. It wasn’t as swollen as it had been, but her ankle and foot were still deep purple, and it was still incredibly painful to the touch. 

 

She heard Jaime lick his lips. Did he like her? Or was she too skinny and brown-haired for his tastes? Arya glanced over at him.

 

His eyes were dilated black and fixed on her thighs. He was looking at her the way Sansa used to look at lemon cakes; the was Robb and Theon watched the Winter Town whores. 

 

Arya had seen the whores of Braavos at work- she had an idea. Luxuriously, seemingly unawares, she dunked the rag in the hot water and then plopped it on her good ankle. Instead of scrubbing, which was what she’d normally have done, she ran the rag up her shin, over her knee, and almost to her kitty before sliding it back down again. Jaime’s eyes followed her every motion. 

 

“I know what you’re doing,” he said. “And I should tell you that pups who play games get in trouble.”

 

Arya stuck her tongue out at him and returned to actually washing, pleased that he’d enjoyed looking at her and happy that he’d growled at her. There was no point in bedding a toothless lion.  

 

Soon enough Arya finished, and she tossed the rag at Jaime. “Your turn,” she said. She turned so that she could take a good look at him. She’d seen naked men before (dead and alive; the living were more interesting) but Jaime was the first man Arya had  _ wanted  _ to see naked. 

 

He tugged his boiled leather off by gripping at the back of the collar and hauling. Next was a tunic, then a thin linen shirt. Silly southroners; they thought clothes were for looking pretty, not for staying warm. 

 

His chest had a smattering of golden hair over it, which thinned down over his breastbone. Another thin line of hair trailed over a hard stomach and into the waistband of his breeches. His shoulders were wide enough to carry the scorn of an entire continent, and his skin was scarred in some places and tanned in others. He’d lived a hard life, and yet still he fought on. That’s what made him  _ interesting.  _

 

He washed as efficiently as Arya did, a man used to living life on the road.  _ Finally  _ he tugged off his trousers and Arya got to get a good look at his cock in the light. It was soft again, nestled in its thatch of dark gold curls. “It’s not hard,” she commented.

 

“It will be if you keep looking at it like that,” said Jaime, running the cloth down long calves. 

 

“Looking at it makes it hard?” asked Arya, skeptical.

 

“Sometimes,” said Jaime, matter-of-factly. “Didn’t your mother ever discuss this with you?”

 

“Only a little,” said Arya. “She said when I was a lady I’d bleed from between my legs every moon, and that would mean that I was ready to have a baby. I told her I didn’t  _ want  _ to have a baby, and that I didn’t need to do the bleeding, thank you.”

 

Jaime grinned. “When Cersei explained that bit to me I’d never been so glad to be a woman. She hissed and moped when she flowered, cursing the gods and shrieking at the maester when he offered her potions.”

 

“I don’t know why you loved her,” said Arya. She really didn’t. 

 

Jaime didn’t seem to take offense. “We don’t choose who we love, wolf-girl.”

 

They were quiet, and Jaime tugged his breeches back on, but left the laces loose. “Can we do that thing with our fingers again?” asked Arya, admiring the picture he made in the firelight. Maybe the First Men looked like this, lounged in their long wooden houses. Maybe their skin had reflected the firelight where it wasn’t covered by furs. Maybe they’d been lean with travel and muscular from fighting. 

 

Jaime was quiet for a long moment, looking up at the dome of dirt above their heads. “It could be a bad idea,” he said after a while. “We’ll be back in Winterfell soon enough, and I’m not exactly someone your family will welcome.”

 

“If Sansa is the Lady of Winterfell, she’d never turn you away from the table,” said Arya, scooting to take her place at Jaime’s side. It was habit now for her to lie with her head cushioned in the dip of Jaime’s shoulder and her leg swung over his.  She fell asleep every night to the steady thump of his heart, and she’d never slept so deeply. “Besides,” Arya added. “I wouldn’t let her.”

 

“She was beaten by Joffrey, tormented by Cersei, and married against her will to Tyrion,” said Jaime dryly. “I think you’re underestimating her reasons to hate me.”

 

“Oh.”  _ Poor Sansa. She only ever wanted things to be nice.  _ “Well, I don’t care,” said Arya. 

 

“I do,” said Jaime. “After all this time you deserve to be happy with your family, and I’m not going to jeopardize that so I can have a few minutes of fun now.”

 

“But-”  _ But you’re my family too,  _ Arya wailed to herself.  _ Pack. That’s what pack means.  _

 

“Hush,” said Jaime, turning to kiss Arya’s forehead. “If you still want me when you’re home and you aren’t so lonely any more… then we’ll see, pup.”

 

“Don’t you want me?” Arya asked. “I don’t want your pity, Lannister.”

 

Jaime barked a laugh. “Haven’t we been here before? I want you,” he said. “Of course I want you. Any man would. But I’ve been with  _ one woman,  _ wolf-girl. And you’ve been with no man. It feels like I’m… tempting the gods. Besides- I only save maidens.”

 

“You keep saying that,” said Arya, impatient. Of course she would still want him when they were in Winterfell; scenery didn’t change the wanting. 

 

Jaime told her of his friend (he paused, looking for a word, and when he said ‘friend’ it rang out as truth) Brienne of Tarth, a lady knight and former Kingsguard of Renly Baratheon. He told her about the bear, and the Goat, and how it was Brienne who had convinced him to live again. It was an amazing tale, one actually worthy of being in a song, but-

 

“But why were you traveling with her in the first place?” asked Arya. 

 

Jaime cleared his throat. “I- ah. I was captured by your brother in battle,” he said. “Your mother freed me, she wanted to trade me back to my family in exchange for you and Sansa.”

 

“And you lied,” said Arya flatly. 

 

“No!” said Jaime. “Sansa was gone, had fled the city when I got back, and nobody had heard of you in nearly a year. I sent Brienne out to find Sansa, and I hope for your sister’s sake she was successful.”

 

Arya didn’t know what to say to Jaime. She wasn’t angry, particularly. The thought that kept circling in Arya’s mind was that  _ she couldn’t remember her mother’s face.  _ She wouldn’t humiliate herself by asking. 

 

In a strange, thoughtful silence, Arya and Jaime fell asleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seriously, I just adore you all <3


	5. Home

The sky was still angry and dark when they woke, and snow was still being carried on the wind in heavy sheets. It would be a miserable day to travel, they were warmish and had plenty of food frozen out in the snow: in short, neither Arya nor Jaime were in a hurry to leave their burrow.

 

“How did you know about this?” asked Jaime, gesturing up at the domed roof. “Are all barrows hollow?”

 

“I don’t know,” said Arya. “I wasn’t even sure if this one would be. They’re just… legends, here. Some people say that the First Men were buried like this, put to rest in the earth that had given them life. They were buried with their weapons and sometimes even their hunting dogs.

 

“Other people- my old nursemaid- she said that the barrows were built by the Children of the Forest, back when time was new. She said that they had tunnels through the North and Neck, and through them they could travel unseen by the eyes of men. The barrows were their gates.”

 

“Fairy stories,” said Jaime. “You trusted fairy stories?”

 

“It worked, didn’t it?” said Arya. “It’s not like you had any better ideas.”

 

Jaime shrugged.

 

They slept most of the day away, gorged on spiced venison, and rode out the next morning. It was slow going through the heavy snows; despite being within view of the Kingsroad mile stones it took them another day to reach the path. Arya taught Jaime that is was warmer to sleep within snow than under it, and despite the odd… tension between them, they were still comfortable with each other’s bodies. Jaime still had to lift Arya on and off Redemption, and now that that immediate pain was fading Arya was irritated with her continued injury.

 

They didn’t speak of lying together again, but the conversation still hung in the air between them. They were both surprised and confused by Jaime’s insistence that they wait. They were both surprised and confused by the fact that Arya accepted it.

 

Arya didn’t weep again, but she knew her temper was growing shorter and shorter the closer they drew to Winterfell. She was almost _home;_ she’d worked towards this day for five years. She’d learned to wade through rivers of blood to get here; she’d broken herself into a mouse-girl, a blind girl, a Faceless girl, a servant or whore or killer. It had all been for _this,_ and that chapter of her story was almost over.

 

If Arya wanted she could remake herself once more but-

 

-but how much of her remained to be remade? How many times could you change the mast and oars and planking of a ship and call it by the same name? Could a sword have the grip changed, the blade replaced, the hilt updated and be called the same sword?

 

When Arya arrived back in Winterfell there was no fanfare. Jaime had put her up in front of him for the first part of the journey, and Arya’s insult and bewilderment melted just a little at that. He may be a stubborn old lion, but he wasn’t stupid.

 

The gates of Winterfell were closed. They never had been when her parents ruled, Winterfell was a place where all of the North could come and be heard. Now the heavy gates were closed and blackened with scorch marks.

 

“Who are you?” asked a guard from the gatehouse above. For the first time in four years Arya heard the clipped tones of the North, and it rang in her ears like bells.

 

For that, she smiled up at the guard. “My name is Arya Stark,” she said, “And Winterfell is my home.”

 

“We got another one,” the guard called over his shoulder. “Sorry, lady,” he said. “But we aren’t to let anymore Aryas into the keep. It tires out the Lady.”

 

“And who is the lady?” asked Arya from her place in Jaime’s lap. So far he’d been silent: he always let her fight her own battles.

 

“The Lady Sansa,” said the guard. “Your supposed sister. You better brush up if you’re to pass as Arya.”

 

Arya smirked. “The third step from the top of the stairs to the guardhouse was always loose. Did they ever fix it? Or did the stairs burn as well? I remember playing on the walls as a child. Bran and I would chase each other, even though he always won when climbed. I won when the game was hiding. Would you like me to tell you my best hiding places?”

 

She was polite; not even Catlyn would be able to fault her tone. It was _too_ polite; the guard was squinting down at Arya to get a better look at her. “I’m coming down there,” he said. “Don’t leave.”

 

Arya nodded and the guard disappeared.

 

“Let me down,” said Arya to Jaime. He lowered her down and passed over her sword without her asking. She heard him dismount behind her, and she managed to lean against Redemption’s shoulder in a casual, devil-may-care way just before the gate cracked open enough to let two guards through.

 

“What are you after?” asked the first.

 

“I want to see my sister,” said Arya.

 

“She does look like the Stark bint,” commented the second.

 

“We all know Arya Stark is dead; you think some highborn girl of ten and two would have survived a war on her own without anybody knowing better?”

 

“Yes,” said Arya, drawing her sword. “It’s cold, and I’ve been on the road for weeks. It’s been five years since I’ve seen my home. _Move.”_ She was out of patience. She’d asked nicely, she’d let them get a good look at her, and then they’d talked about her like she wasn’t there. That was the last straw; she’d apologize later to Sansa for killing her two most useless guards.

 

“What’s that little thing?” asked the first man.

 

“A sword, you idiot,” said the second guard, and clearly the smarter of the two.

 

They both drew their blades, and Arya wished she could tell Jaime not to step in. She needed to burn off the nervous energy that had been building in her since they left the barrow nearly a fortnight ago.

 

“Well?” she asked, feeling her lips curl into a grin.

 

The first guard rushed her, and _oh_ was he dreadful. Jaime could have beaten him. Arya stood on one foot, parried his blow, punched him in the groin, and brought the hilt of her sword down on his head, knocking him out cold.

 

The other guard seemed to be weighing his options. “Are you going to let me in or not?”

 

More reluctantly, the second guard engaged. He still wasn’t a challenge; Arya didn’t even need to move from her spot. She parried his blows easily and took the offensive just long enough that when she bent her knee, sprang, kicked the boy in the jaw, and landed on her same foot, a crowd had gathered.

 

“What is going on?” asked a woman’s voice from the back of the little huddle of onlookers. Even five years later Arya would know those round, haughty vowels.

 

“Hullo Sansa,” said Arya, grinning up at her sister and sheathing her sword.

 

Sansa blanched white before crushing Arya to her. “I thought you were _dead,_ we all thought you were dead. Where have you _been,_ how did you get here, you know the roads are impassable in winter-”

 

Sansa stiffened; she must have noticed Arya’s companion.

 

“Kingslayer,” said Sansa stiffy.

 

“Lady Stark,” said Jaime, and Arya turned in time to see him bow. Arya was impressed. She’d never heard of a Lannister actually bowing to _anyone._

 

“Thank you for my sister’s safe return, and may the gods go with you on your travels.” Sansa turned her back (cloak swirling, Sansa always had a flair for the dramatic), wrapped an arm around Arya’s shoulders, and tried to tug her into the main yard.

 

“He didn’t bring me back,” said Arya, shaking off Sansa. “And he’s not being left outside this gate to freeze.”

 

“Arya,” Sansa whispered, glancing around the yard. “He’s the _Kingslayer,_ he’s a _Lannister,_ come inside and I’ll explain.”

 

“I don’t need you to explain anything,” said Arya in full volume. “I just need you to let him in.”

 

Sansa’s nostrils flared (She still hadn’t lost that tell; Arya used to count how many times she could make Sansa’s straight little nose flare during one meal) and she narrowed her eyes at Arya. “Fine,” she said. “He can come into the Hall.”

 

Arya smiled prettily at Sansa (she could act too, she just didn’t _like_ acting when she was wearing her own face) and turned her back on her sister. “Jaime could you help me?”

 

His expression was blank as he stepped forward, but Arya heard him whisper, “Gods help us both, wolf-girl,” as he lifted her back onto Redemption.

 

“I hurt myself on the road,” Arya told Sansa, who was watching the scene though slitty eyes. “You understand.”

 

“Of course,” said Sansa, who spun on her heel and preceded Jaime and Arya into the keep.

 

When Arya dismounted she wrapped her arm around Jaime’s waist and together they walked into the Great Hall of Winterfell. The walls were scorched here too, and the old Black Oak mantle that had graced the massive fireplace for centuries was gone, a clean and new one in its place. A High Table sat where it always did, and Sansa was quick to position herself at the head of it when she called for food and drink. Arya sat at Sansa’s right, and Jaime took the seat next to her. No one else was foolish enough to interrupt; they had the echoing hall to themselves.

 

“He stays,” said Arya before Sansa could get a word in otherwise. “I’m a Stark, and I have just as much right to bring guests into this house as you do. Now that that is out of the way-” she leaned towards her sister and took Sansa’s hand. “I missed you.”

 

Sansa eyed Jaime but covered Arya’s hand with her own. “I missed you too. Where have you _been?”_

 

Arya told Sansa the sanitized version of her story. Sansa assumed the House of Black and White to be like any other temple, and Arya let her believe that.

 

Sansa told Arya of her own journey, flicking glances at Jaime all the while. “Jon sailed South,” she said after a while. “He went to meet the Dragon Queen.”

 

“Jon isn’t here?” Arya asked, the breath _wooshing_ out of her.

 

“No,” said Sansa, bitter again. “I told him not to go meet this Daenerys Targaryen, but he insisted, and he is the King in the North.”

 

“Oh, so Daenerys made it,” said Arya, distracted by thoughts of Jon. She’d wanted to see him again, had lived for that day.

 

Sansa gave Arya and odd look before continuing, “And Bran is here as well. He’s… different.”

 

“Different, how?” asked Arya.

 

“His back was damaged in the fall,” said Sansa. “He can’t walk, and he… sees things. He says he lived beyond the Wall training to be a greenseer.”

 

Jaime shifted next to Arya; she ignored him. “Can I see him?” she asked Sansa. Pack, here it was, Sansa and Arya and Bran and Jon- because Jon _wouldn’t_ be killed by Daenerys or her dragons: if he was Arya would steal secrets from the gods themselves to yank the dragons from the skies and kill then where they lay.

 

And Jaime- Jaime was pack too.

 

“Bran is in the godswood,” said Sansa. He doesn’t like to be disturbed during the day. He comes in for dinner- well, we fetch him in for dinner.”

 

 _Poor Sansa,_ thought Arya. _She wanted her family back, and instead she got a king, a mindwalking truthsayer, and an ugly assassin sister. Poor, sweet Sansa._

 

“Would you like to go to your chambers?” asked Sansa. “I can have baths sent up.”

 

“Thank you, lady,” said Jaime. It was the first thing he’d said since they’d come inside.

Sansa followed Arya up the stairs. Arya had assumed that she’d be in her old room, and she was. When she walked by the door to her parents’ old chamber she saw that Sansa had taken up residence there. Arya wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Her parents were dead and gone, yes, but shouldn’t that be Jon’s room? Or should it be left empty… just because? Because they were orphans, the lot of them, and they deserved to let that wound close over?

 

Maybe it had healed for Sansa. Maybe she’d grown past the pain.

 

That was a disturbing thought.

 

At least Sansa managed to wait for Arya to get into the bath before opening her interrogation. “Why are you traveling with that man?” she asked.

 

Arya didn’t open her eyes. She was waist deep in scalding hot water for the first time in _months,_ she was warm and full and relaxing. Not even Sansa could ruin this for her.

 

“We met on the road,” said Arya. “And since I didn’t feel like fighting my way all through the Neck single-handed, I thought it would be easier to ride together. It’s nice to have someone watch your back.”

 

“He might have put a sword in it,” said Sansa.

 

“Did he actually do anything to you?” asked Arya, fishing around in the tub for her sponge. “Or only his family?”

 

“His family did enough,” said Sansa.

 

A maid poured another bucked of steaming water into Arya’s bath, and both women waited until the maid had retreated before continuing. “Look,” said Arya, holding her purple ankle and foot out of the tub for Sansa to see. “It’s broken, well and truly broken. Jaime could have left me to starve or freeze to death; he’d have made it north faster, _but he didn’t._ He put me up on that horse every day. He melted snow for me to drink and when I needed to piss he carried me to a bush so that I didn’t die of old age before getting there on my own.”

 

“Language!” said Sansa, and she sounded so much like their mother that the sisters ended up grinning at each other.

 

“Look,” said Arya, her tone less combative. “I’m sorry for what happened to you. I’ll kill everyone who wronged you, who wronged _us,_ but I don’t think Jaime is that man. Just… give him a chance, alright? For me?”

 

“Fine,” said Sansa on a sigh. “I should know more than most that you can’t judge one person based on the rest of their family.”

 

“Was Tyrion so terrible?” Arya asked.

 

“No,” said Sansa. “I realize that now. He was ...rather sweet, in his way.”

 

Arya ducked under the water so she could wash her hair. Now that she was inside and wet she _reeked_ of horse.

 

“You heard about Edmure’s wedding?” asked Sansa quietly as Arya soaped her hair.

 

“They call it the Red Wedding in the east,” said Arya. “They say it’s an insult to the gods for men to be killed as guests, and even worse luck to do so at a wedding feast.”

 

“Maybe it’s true,” Sansa mused. “We heard some very strange from House Frey in recent weeks.”

 

“Like what?” asked Arya, smirking deep inside herself. House Frey had been _fun._ She’d planned it all, step by step, as she sailed across the Narrow Sea.

 

“Like one of the serving girls killing all the Frey sons, or an acrobat slipping poison into the men’s wine. One of his daughters is _swearing_ a foreign woman did it, but really. Some stories go too far.”

 

“Odd,” said Arya, dunking under the water again and smiling in the warm, murky depths.

 

When she surfaced Sansa carefully asked, “I only mentioned Edmure’s wedding because it’s rumored that Jaime was behind it all.”

 

“He can’t have been,” said Arya easily, thinking that Sansa would have been beaten to death by the Waif. She couldn’t hide a single thought in that pretty head- the pitch of her voice bounced high and low, her words were clipped, and her face betrayed almost everything she thought. Oh, she was trying to be expressionless, but even that was a tell. Sansa could never have been Faceless.

 

Then again, Arya wouldn’t have been married to half the men in the kingdom, let alone to nearly all the enemies of her family. She’d have killed her potential husband and then would likely have been executed if she couldn’t figure out how to escape.

 

All things considered, Arya was still glad she’d escaped the Red Keep on the day her father was taken.

 

“And why couldn’t Jaime Lannister have been behind the murder of our House?” asked Sansa, exasperated. She was so desperate to find a man to hate, a bogeyman upon which to pin all her hatred and fear and grief. Jaime Lannister must have been an appealing candidate.

 

“He wasn’t there,” said Arya. “And the timing doesn’t work. Robb held him prisoner for months. Even if he had overheard something, he didn’t have any way to communicate with his family or the Freys. He was marching through the Riverlands with a knight named Brienne of Tarth.”

 

Sansa’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly at the mention of Brienne’s name.

 

“What?” asked Arya.

 

“Brienne is my sworn shield,” said Sansa. “She found me- well, she found me just in time. I sent her south to parlay with Cersei and the Dragon Queen on my behalf. It’s likely that what you say is true; Brienne wouldn’t have let Jaime plot something like that and never notice. I’ll ask when she returns.”

 

“Why didn’t you go?” asked Arya. Arya desperately wanted to see the dragons, and besides- what an easy way to get close enough to Cersei to kill her.

 

“I’m not going south again,” said Sansa, firmly. “Winterfell is my home.”

 

“I’m glad we’re back,” said Arya, dumping a pail of clean water over her head to rinse.

 

“Me too,” said Sansa. “I wish Jon had been here to greet you.”

 

“Me too,” Arya echoed.

 

“Jaime can stay,” said Sansa, rising. “And I’ll see him outfitted in warmer clothes. You as well… would you like to borrow a dress?” That last offer was said just the tiniest bit hopefully.

 

Sansa was curvier and at least ten inches taller than Arya. Arya would look beyond ridiculous in one of Sana’s dresses.

 

“No, thank you,” said Arya. “I’ll take some breeches and a tunic, please.”

 

Sansa managed not to wrinkle her nose. “I’ll see if one of the kitchen boys has something to spare while yours are cleaned,” she said. “And we’ll outfit you as well.” She swept out, the hem of her fine grey dress brushing the floor, the red of her hair catching the light of the fire. For a moment it was like Catelyn had returned, but then she was Sansa again, just as lost and lonely as Arya was.

 

Arya spent the afternoon talking to Maester Wolkan as he splinted her ankle. He warned her to stay off of it, and for her part Arya made sure the Maester knew that _Arya_ knew what poisons were for and how they worked. The man had served the Boltons loyally, and now the Boltons were dead. Wouldn’t it be a shame if Wolkan ended up that way too, hmm? She certainly managed to scare the junior maester, a round man not much older than Arya. He went pale and hurried away when she began her talk of poisons.

 

Dinner was an odd affair. The Lord’s seat at the center of the High Table was left empty. Sansa sat on one side of it, and Bran took a place on the other. Arya and Jaime ranged down from Sansa’s side, with a few Manderlys and Glovers down from Bran.

 

Seeing Bran again… had been strange. Arya had rushed to hug him when she found him in the Great Hall, and he hadn’t returned the hug, despite his working, sinewy arms. He’d smiled vaguely, but his gaze had been focused on something beyond the walls of the Hall. He seemed… only half there; mostly living in a land only he could access. Sansa said it was time; that he could walk forward and back to see the truths of things.

 

Arya didn’t know what to think about that.

 

Jaime was clean and clean-shaven; someone had clipped his hair for him as well. He was in borrowed clothes and his ancient boots. Arya thought she’d like seeing the direwolf of House Stark on Jaime’s chest, but that was wrong too. He was a lion, and he wasn’t one of Sansa’s vassals. He was his _own,_ like Arya was, like Nymeria.

 

He avoided talking to Arya for most of the meal and snapped at her when she offered to hold his roast in one spot so he could cut it. She thought him stabbing it and then gnawing at it like a turkey leg looked just as foolish, but she was more than passingly familiar with pride, so she let him have his.

 

After dinner Jaime made his excuses to Arya and Sansa, claiming he was weary from the journey. That was probably true, but Arya suspected he just wanted to give her time with her family. She wanted to be with him, too, and for the first time she realized that maybe he’d been right about her homecoming. He’d been right about Sansa’s reaction, and he’d been right that his presence would split her affections. He’d just… been right.

 

That night, after Sansa had gone to bed and Bran had rolled off to do whatever it was Bran did (Arya would follow him later) she went looking for Jaime. He’d been given a cold room in the guest quarters, another little insult graciously handed down from Sansa. He should have been put in the family wing with the Glover and Manderly representatives, sons and daughters pledged to serve the King of the North and the Lady of Winterfell. Instead he was in a cold, lonely corner. Arya would talk to Sansa about it in the morning, but right now she wanted to talk to Jaime.

 

He was under his furs and asleep, looking younger and less tense. His still nameless sword was propped up against the bed, and his fire had started to burn down low. Arya built the fire back up, kicked off her boots and breeches, and leaned her crutch against the wall. She slid into bed by Jaime and sighed. Finally, this felt normal.

 

“What are you doing, wolf-girl?” asked Jaime, his voice low and raspy with sleep.

 

“Finding you,” said Arya, scooting closer to Jaime now that he was awake.

 

“You should be in your own bed, pup,” said Jaime, but he tugged her closer anyway.

 

Arya burrowed closer, happy to be laying on something soft, happy to be warm under layers of furs scented with pine and dried wild roses, happy to be snuggled against her packmate.

 

“This _is_ my bed,” she insisted. “I’m used to you.”

 

“I missed you too,” sighed Jaime. “But you should be with your family, off giggling with your sister or whatever it is happy families do.”

 

“I’ve never _giggled with Sansa,”_ said Arya, offended. “I laughed at her for being a ninny, and she laughed at me for being an ugly horse-faced girl who was bad at being a lady.”

 

“Well, you aren’t little girls anymore,” said Jaime. “You should be building something with her, wolf-girl.”

 

“But- you said when we got back to Winterfell-” she’d assumed she’d at least  still be welcome in his bed, even if he was reluctant to fuck her. She _wanted_ him to fuck her but Arya didn’t _need_ it. She needed to sleep next to someone she liked and trusted.

 

“Is that it?” asked Jaime on a half-laugh. “Bedding? I told you I’d think about bedding you when you got back home and weren’t so lonely, wolf-bitch. I’m not going to be a convenient prick anymore, and your loneliness isn’t going to disappear in one afternoon. Family takes work, blood doesn’t make it easy.” He pushed her away, angry and not understanding.

 

Arya was hurt. How many times was he going to reject her? How desperate would he make her feel? He said he would be her _pack,_ pack was family too. Would she actually tell him of these soft feelings? No. He’d made her feel bad. She’d make him feel worse.

 

“At least I’m not impotent unless I’m fucking my sister!” said Arya, thrusting the verbal dagger in and twisting. “Would you like me if I offered to fuck you on my hands and knees? You could close your eyes and pretend I’m her!”

 

Jaime’s green eyes narrowed. “Don’t push me, wolf-bitch,” he said. “If I _didn’t_ like you I’d use you like a whore and not think of you again.”

 

“I don’t think you could,” Arya taunted. “I don’t think you can get it up for someone who isn’t blonde and a blood relative.”

 

“Fuck you, Stark bitch,” said Jaime, moving faster than Arya had seen him before. He yanked her back down onto the bed, rolled her onto her belly, and planted a knee in the center of her back, pinning her down. Arya was weaponless, and even if she’d had a knife she wouldn’t have used it on him. This was fighting but _better,_ this was pain mixed with pleasure. He wanted her even if he didn’t like it, and based on his snarls he still liked _her_. Arya liked him, and she liked that he wasn’t soft and malleable. Easy people were boring.

 

She could feel him fumbling, likely unlacing his breeches, and then his palm slapped down against the curve of her arse. “You thought I didn’t want you,” he growled, flipping the hem of Arya’s tunic up so her cheeks and cunt were exposed to his view. “You wanted me to fuck you on your hands and knees like a _dog_ so I wouldn’t need to see your face. Is this what you wanted, wolf-bitch?”

 

The next slap was across the lips of Arya’s cunt and she jumped, shocked by the pain, horrified by the act yet reveling at the moisture pooling there. She whimpered, gripped by arousal and shame and need.

 

“You wanted me because I’m close by, because I don’t shame you for carrying a sword, because I haven’t tried to rape you yet. I see you, wolf-girl, and you need to raise your fucking standards.”

 

He shoved two fingers into her, the knuckles of his hand thumping against her cunt like a dagger hilt when the blade hit home. “So fucking wet,” said Jaime, curling his fingers inside her. “Are you in heat, wolf? Is that why you’ll hump any man nearby?”

 

“No,” panted Arya, her fingers fisting in the covers of the bed. She rolled her hips, undulating, hoping that if she showed him her need he’d fill her. “No, Jaime, I want _you,_ please.”

 

He listened to her beg, and his fingers stopped moving within her.

 

“Jaime?” Arya wiggled, trying to encourage him to keep fucking her with his fingers.

 

He removed his knee from her back and stroked down her spine, leaving a damp trail along her skin. “You should never beg,” he said, his voice lower. “Not to anyone, pup.”

 

He pressed his lips to the sharp blade of her shoulder and settled alongside her, his palm warm on the small of her back.

 

Arya lifted her face and eyed Jaime. What was he doing? Why had he stopped.

Jaime leaned in and kissed her, his lips gentle and toying with hers.

 

“I don’t think of you as a convenient cock,” said Arya stiffly. She didn’t want to explore her feelings any further, but she was sure it wasn’t _that._

 

“I know, pup,” said Jaime. “Mea culpa. My problem, my fault.”

 

“Is that what you were to Cersei?” asked Arya. She rolled onto her side too, so she was facing him, and almost out of habit Jaime hiked her calf up over his hip. She was so much shorter than him, and though it should have been more noticeable when they were upright and moving, she didn’t _feel_ short until they laid down like this. When she curled up comfortably her toes brushed his knees and her head still fit snugly under his chin.

 

“I…” he seemed lost in thought.

 

“You don’t have to tell me,” said Arya, closing her eyes. He didn’t need to tell her. He didn’t owe her anything.

 

“No,” said Jaime. “I want to tell you, but- I don’t know. I’ve tried not to think about it, about _her,_ because it makes me think I tossed my life away.”

 

“You aren’t old,” said Arya.

 

Jaime’s eyes crinkled. “I didn’t get these grey hairs for nothing, pup.” He was still stroking her, his palm sliding up and down the back of Arya’s thigh, warm and soothing. She liked being petted; maybe she was a pup in truth.

 

“I can’t remember who started it, who kissed who,” said Jaime. “It was just always us. She felt like an extension of myself, and how could that be bad? When we were a little older- twelve, maybe, when I truly began to train as an adult- I saw us as seperate people. She never did… I was a reflection of herself. To me she was the most beautiful and most funny girl in the kingdoms. I’d been born with my soul-twin; I didn’t need to look…”

 

The fire crackled, and Arya could see it easily: two perfect golden twins twined around each other, laughing with each other, speaking in a language of bodies and signs that only they could understand. It was the closest kind of sharing, and her initial disgust fell away: nobody could choose who they loved.

 

“It all changed when she married Robert. I was her delicious secret, her revenge, and she was the love of my life. She wanted children, I gave them to her. She wanted a fuck, I gave it to her. She wanted her so-called enemies killed and I didn’t stop her, didn’t blink.

 

“She’d been fucking half my Kingsguard,” he said, almost conversationally. “I hadn’t been around enough, and just about anyone would do.”

 

“You weren’t her anymore,” said Arya. “You started to be your own man, and she loathed that you weren’t hers anymore.”

 

Jaime pinched her arse. “Little wolf-girls shouldn’t be so smart.”

 

Arya had been called many, many things, but almost never smart. Being ‘smart’ was a compliment, pure and unadorned. No, Arya was clever, or nosy, or stupid or stubborn or ugly.

 

 _He thought she was smart._ Arya hugged the comment to her chest to cherish as all freely-given gifts should be.

Jaime sighed, and once more she concentrated on the lion in her bed.

 

“I haven’t been with a women in almost two years,” he said. “It was always her, even when I hated her, even when I knew I’d hate myself for going back to her. And then I saw her at the Dragon Pit; I heard her condemn all of Westeros to death, and it just… snapped. I didn’t recognize her. She’d grown old and bitter and cruel, her lips pressed thin and her eyes lined and squinted. She’d turned ugly, and I’d never noticed.

 

“I’m afraid of disappointing myself again, wolf-girl.And I’m afraid of disappointing you. Find a knight that will teach you the things I want to know.”

 

How was he so brave? How did he talk so easily of fear, of shame, of being an idiot in love?

 

_How did she repay his truths?_

 

“I…” _This was hard. She’d never put any of it into words, either, because when she looked inside herself all she saw was blackness and broken glass. She’d rather look forward, keep moving, leave herself a trail of blood to follow._

 

“I was terrified of being found out as a girl,” said Arya. “For years. Suddenly I was so thankful that I was ugly-”

 

“Seven hells, wolf-bitch, you don’t still think that, do you?”

 

Arya glared at him, and Jaime shut up.

 

“I was thankful to be ugly, because none of the men thought I could be a girl. Then when I was- when people realized- I was still the ugliest one around. They took the other women, made their bellies swell, but I was left alone.

 

“In the House of Black and White… it wasn’t a place of life. Besides- I’d learned to hear the truth by then, and men in lust lie and lie and lie.

 

“I- I like you,” she repeated, stubborn. She didn’t want to go into the _why_ of this, didn’t want to search in the soul she wasn’t sure she had.

 

Jaime’s hand dipped from Arya’s thigh to her cunt and toyed there, not sliding inside, just… stroked her. “I like you too, pup, _but I don’t know what I’m doing.”_

 

Surprised green eyes met startled grey: they both couldn’t believe that he’d said that.

 

“I didn’t just swordfight with my right hand,” muttered Jaime. “And I don’t exactly know what women like.”

 

“Well, neither do I, and you did fine last time,” said Arya. This was _awkward._ Sex was, according to washerwomen around the world, supposed to be quick and messy and then the man rolled off you and went to sleep. It wasn’t supposed to be all _talking_ and _feelings_ and awkward revelations that should have never been spoken out loud.

 

Jaime cocked his head and looked down at her. “Did you mean that?” he asked. “That’d you were happy to be ugly?”

 

Arya shifted uncomfortably and Jaime, damn him, gripped the curls covering her kitty. She couldn’t get away from him.

 

“Yes,” she said, finally. “I’d rather be ugly than raped pregnant. I still prefer that.”

 

“It isn’t nice to argue with a lady,” said Jaime finally. “So I guess I’ll have to show you.”

 

“Show me what?” asked Arya, suspicious.

 

Jaime tugged her closer and kissed her, gently. “I love your mouth,” he said. “It’s smart, and clever, and the palest shade of pink. It’s soft.”

 

He pressed kissed to her eyelids and straight nose. “You have a cute nose,” he said. “And your eyes- it was how I knew you. You’d grown, and changed, but you have eyes that are a thousand years old. You have your aunt’s eyes, the eyes of the north, old mirrored eyes that watch the world go by.”

 

Arya was squirming, uncomfortable, not wanting him to continue saying these foolish things. He should lie to her, and yet her instincts said he was telling a truth; his truth. He shouldn’t waste time whispering to her, he should fuck her. She wanted him to finish what he’d started before; she wanted to wear his bruises in the morning like she would after a well-fought sparring match. She didn’t want to feel special. She didn’t want to-

 

Well, feel.

 

Jaime ran his palm over Arya’s side and down to her leg, caressing the pale skin. “I love how strong you are,” he said. “I’d give anything to have my hand back and spar with you.”

 

 _Me too,_ thought Arya. _Riches, names, titles. To meet as whole equals._

 

“You’d have won,” said Arya. It was the best compliment she could give him at the moment, the only thing she could say that would be true without revealing too much.

 

“I doubt it,” said Jaime. “I think we’d both have dropped of exhaustion before admitting defeat.”

 

Arya smiled a little: that was completely, comfortably true.

 

Jaime returned to his uncomfortable truths. “I love how determined you are, how I forget how small you are because you just- you’re so much bigger inside.”

 

 _No,_ Arya wanted to cry. _No, no, no. Inside I’m a grey-girl, a ghost girl, a mouse._

 

“And here,” said Jaime, his stupid fingers sliding into her cunny, his stupid mouth still spouting off, “Here’s you’re soft, and warm, and new. An innocent who has walked through a fountain of blood. It’s a heavy combination, wolf-girl.”

 

He grinned at her, his crooked little half-smile that Arya had come to know meant: _Isn’t this ridiculous? Isn’t life strange, and odd, and aren’t we lucky to be in the strange place together?_

 

Jaime was the king of self-deprecating smiles.

 

Arya looked at, tried to think of him objectively, externally. He had a jaw unlike any she’d seen before and shoulders wide enough to carry the hatred of a continent’s worth of people. His hand and face were weathered by the sun, and he was _tall._ Not freakishly tall, not like a Clegane, but tall enough that she felt… warm. In her belly.

 

 _That’s arousal, you stupid,_ Arya thought as Jaime’s fingers lazily stroked her slit.

 

He’d been watching her watch him, and now his crooked half-smile had widened, his white teeth flashing. “I like that you aren’t subtle,” he said, and then leaned in to kiss her again.

 

This wasn’t a gentle kiss, not like before. Jaime apparently knew she didn’t want gentle. He bit her lower lip, and when Arya gasped he plundered her open mouth. His fingers were gripping her hip now, and he was easing her onto her back, and as his weight settled against her she was more and more ready for him.

 

“Patience,” said Jaime, kissing her quickly and forcing her thighs apart with one knee.

 

“I’ve _been_ patient,” said Arya. “I want you _now.”_

 

“Fine,” said Jaime, mock-exasperated. “Fine, here I am trying to do a proper job of virgin deflowering, but all she wants is a fast, hard fuck.”

 

He braced himself over her, and Arya watched in hungry fascination as the muscles in Jaime’s abdomen bunched. “Never let it be said I disappointed a lady,” he drawled before taking himself in hand, lining up with her cunt, and sliding home as his mouth crashed down over hers.

 

Arya moaned, arching closer to him. This was _wondrous,_ she felt so full and warm and stretched, and when he undulated against her, his hips working his cock against her cunt she flexed again, rising to meet him in the middle. Her hand was wrapped around his arm and her eyes were locked onto his, watching amusement and affection and arousal flicker through the green depths.

 

“Easy, wolf-girl,” he murmured. “It’s been a while- gods, girl- I’m supposed to be making this good for _you.”_

 

Arya was chasing completion, using Jaime’s shoulders as leverage to fuck herself up onto his cock. She’d never felt this wet, this needy, and-

 

He pulled out and rolled her away from him onto her side. Arya yelped, and then Jaime’s palm was under her leg, yanking it awkwardly backwards over his hip, then his hand was on her stomach and his cock was in her cunt, warm and tight where it belonged.

 

“What was that for?” she groused.

 

“That was because you aren’t being a cooperative virgin, pup,” said Jaime, rocking his hips into her and pressing her tightly against him with his hand. “And because I only have one hand, and this way I don’t have to hold myself up. I can touch you,” he said, sliding his hand inside her tunic to pinch a breast.

 

Arya gasped and wiggled. Mostly she’d thought of her teats as nuisances and things she could use to distract men. Now they were sensitive and wonderful. Jaime pinched too softly or too lightly, learning a partner and old moves with a new hand, but soon he had her writhing against him, fucking forward into the empty air.

 

 _“Jaime,”_ she keened, feeling like her skin was too hot and too tight.

 

“Hush,” he said again, and he ran his hand down her ribs and over her belly to her cunt.

 

He found her clit hard and sensitive, and clumsily at first he circled there with occasional flicks, his hips still working steadily into her, and Arya wasn’t sure if she wanted to get away from him, from all this _feeling,_ or if she wanted even closer.

 

“C’mon, wolf-girl,” he rasped into her ear. “Come for me.”

 

Arya whimpered, keened, came. It was so much _better_ this way, better with something for her cunt to cling to other than her own fingers.

 

Jaime slid of of her as she shuddered, and she felt sticky wet heat splatter against the small of her back.

 

That was good. Arya didn’t want a Joffrey.

 

They were both breathing hard, and Arya wished she could roll over to kiss Jaime but she didn’t want to smear his seed all over the bed furs. He solved the problem by rising to retrieve a washcloth and scrubbing off her back.

 

She rolled and kissed him leisurely as their skin cooled and they used the rag to wipe her slick and his seed from his cock.

 

“Well?” asked Jaime. “Did I deliver?”

 

Arya smacked him.

 

He grinned and rolled from the bed, tugging on his breeches and shirt. “Where are you going?” she asked, rising to follow him.

 

“The kitchens,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

 

He slipped out of the room, and Arya rose to build up the fire and tidy herself up. She wasn’t a virgin anymore, and  she didn’t feel any different.

 

_Liar._

 

She felt different, but not because she’d played with a cock. She felt different because she’d played with Jaime, and because he thought she was smart.

 

Arya was curled in the furs when Jaime returned with medium sized bowl and a heavy earthenware mug. He passed her the bug before dropping down into the mattress. “What is this?” she asked, smelling the bitter, deep-brown liquid.

 

“Moon tea,” said Jaime, carefully avoiding her eyes.

He didn’t want another Joffrey, either, and he was worried she did. Oh, the poor stupid man. She gulped it down, trying not to breathe through her nose, and then leaned her head on Jaime’s shoulder. “Thank you,” she said.

 

He relaxed incrementally.

 

“Provisions,” he said, uncovering the bowl. He’d found two apples, still fresh from the autumn, and a wedge of soft cheese. The muched together in companionable silence, and when they returned to bed again it was warmly and with affection.

 

“Thank you,” Arya whispered again. She hoped he knew her gratitude was for more than the snack and tea.

 

“Don’t thank me, wolf-girl,” said Jaime, pressing his lips to her hair. Curled together, they fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas, everyone! I told you Sansa 2.0 takes. no. shit! 
> 
> Thank you for the outpouring of support for this story. This one is very near and dear to my heart! To all of you who have left comments for me already, I treasure each and every one.


	6. Feel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know how sometimes you write a whole 60k word story just for like, four scenes that really scratch your id? This is one of those. I hope you enjoy.

Sansa burst into their chamber after the fire had burned low and the air in the room had cooled. The door bounced off the stone wall, and Sansa was greeted by both Arya and Jaime sitting up in the bed, their swords in hand and pointed at her. 

 

“Oh,” said Arya, lowering her blade. “G’morning, Sansa.”

 

Sansa squinted from Arya to Jaime, noticed their unclothed state, and immediately looked straight up at the shadowy ceiling. 

 

_ She’s been engaged or married how many times?  _ Arya wondered, exasperated by her sister’s prudishness. 

 

“I thought you’d be here when I couldn’t find you in your own bed,” said Sansa, still looking resolutely upwards. “I  _ knew  _ you were with him.”

 

Arya hadn’t been angry about being woken in the middle of the night, but that comment pushed her over the edge. “For your information, I was a maid until about two hours ago,” she said hotly. 

 

Jaime flopped back onto the bed and put a pillow over his face, groaning into the feathers. Probably he was already regretting ever coming north, but Arya couldn’t let Sansa’s smugness stand unchallenged.

 

“Now tell me why you bothered hunting me down in the middle of the night,” Arya demanded.

 

“Bran had a vision,” said Sansa, hands on hips. “He wants everyone to meet in mother’s solar.” Her eyes flicked to Jaime. 

 

“He’s coming,” said Arya, sliding out of bed and standing on one foot while she fumbled for her tunic. Where had Jaime flung it?

 

“Fine,” said Sansa, her blush visible even in the dim room. She turned and walked off with a flounce, and Arya noticed that even her nightgown was edged in fine grey fur. 

 

Arya struggled into her flannel shirt and tunic and then eased her trouser leg up over her bad ankle. “C’mon,” she said, lifting the pillow off Jaime’s face. “Stop moping.”

 

“I’m not moping,” said the Kingslayer. Between the denial and his sleep-tousled hair, he was looking particularly boyish, despite the grey hair developing at his temples. “I’m wondering which of your sister’s retainers is going to be sent to assassinate me.

 

Arya considered it. The Sansa of old would never have even known such things happened, but this Sansa, the Sansa that had been trained under Cersei and Littlefinger… well, she’d know a thing or two, and she hadn’t been happy about letting Jaime into the keep. 

 

“You better let me keep sleeping here,” Arya told him as Jaime dressed. “I’ll protect you.”

 

“Exactly what every knight dreams of hearing his lover say,” Jaime drawled. Arya thumped him with her crutch and Jaime wrenched it away from her and tossed it to the floor, laughing all the while. “I don’t regret it,” he said, kissing Arya’s forehead before scooping her up. “And I hope you don’t, either.”

 

“I don’t,” said Arya, wrapping her arms around his neck and resting her head on his shoulder. Here where no one could see them, it was okay to be soft and small. (No one would ever think her innocent again, but… soft. Soft and small were alright.) “Are you really going to carry me through the whole keep?”

 

“Yes,” said Jaime.

 

“It’s far,” she said. “This side is only connected through the Great Hall.”

 

Jaime sighed. “Wolf-girl, you should learn not to issue a man challenges like that. It only makes him want to beat them.”

 

He followed her directions and carried her through the keep, twining through shadowy halls and cold walkways. Bran and Sansa and the high-born guests were already in the lady’s solar when Jaime and Arya arrived. He put her in a chair next to the fire and took a place behind her. She could feel him back there, tense and uneasy, but long accustomed to standing and watching politics unfold. 

 

Arya wished she’d brought more than her dagger. 

 

Bran glanced at Jaime, blue eyes locked with green. The moment stretched, long enough for everyone to look from one to the other and back again. Finally Bran broke the silence. “You’re better,” he said. “Better than you were.”

 

“I think so,” said Jaime quietly. 

 

Everyone shifted uneasily, staring at Bran, who was back to gazing at the fur-covered window. 

 

“The dead walk,” he said.

 

“Jon did say…” said Sansa. 

 

“No,” said Bran, looking at his redheaded sister. “All of the dead. An army… and the King rides a dead dragon with breath of crackling lightning.”

 

“Where do they march?” a Glover asked. “When?”

 

“Now,” said Bran, still looking at Sansa. “The Wall fell by the sea. They walk slowly, but never stop, and every man who has ever fallen unburned will rise to join them.”

 

“We need to check-” a Manderly interrupted. 

 

“We need to check nothing,” said Bran, and Sansa nodded. 

 

“He’s a greenseer,” she said quietly. “He isn’t wrong. Not about this. You heard what Jon- you heard what your King said of his time beyond the Wall. This is true and real, and this is what we’ve been preparing for.”

 

The group was silent. Only the howling wind and crackling fire could be heard.

 

“Jon is sailing to White Harbor,” said Sansa. “We received the raven late last evening. He and the Dragon Queen are sailing north, and her army is soon to follow. Cersei’s army marches too-”

 

“It doesn’t,” said Jaime, and the room turned to look at him. 

 

“Kingslayer?” a Manderly asked. 

 

“She lied,” said Jaime. “I was preparing to lead my men north and she rescinded my orders. She’ll let the northern and Targaryen armies be decimated by the dead and then declare herself queen of whatever remains.”

 

“Why should we believe you?” asked a man. 

 

“Because you’d be foolish not to,” said Jaime. 

 

“And I believe him,” said Arya. She’d make these foolish, stubborn northmen see. 

 

“We need to warn Jon and ...Lady Daenerys,” said Sansa, clearly searching for the proper term to call an invading, semi-hostile queen and coming up empty. “We need to send a message to White Harbor.”

 

“Do it,” said Arya. “Now.” 

 

Arya spent the next four days worrying. Worrying about Jon, worrying about the raven, worrying that it wouldn’t get to him in time. She debated sending another raven, in case the first fell out of the sky and was eaten by a bear, but she didn’t bring it up. She could only sleep if Jaime slept half on top of her, pinning her to the mattress, and neither of them brought up bedding again. It didn’t feel right. 

 

After breakfast, when Jaime went and gamely and angrily allowed himself to be beaten over and over by the soldiers stationed in Winterfell, Arya snuck away to train too. She knew she was supposed to stay off her ankle, but… well, if she lived through the coming war she’d rest it then. She needed to train to be ready, and she needed to train to move her mind off Jon and the rambling dead. 

 

How could she have come so far only to miss seeing the one person who had ever truly loved her exactly as she was? 

 

That morning when Jaime wrapped himself in furs to go fight left-handed and be soundly beaten, Arya crept through the castle with her sword and crutch, once more surprised by how easy it was to slip past her household, even  _ with  _ an ungainly length of wood propping her up. If the Faceless Men every decided to take over Westeros, the entire coup would go unheeded. 

 

She snuck across the snowy yard to the First Keep. She and Bran had played here. Jon had comforted her here, telling her that she wasn’t a bastard no matter what Sansa said. Here in the oldest part of Winterfell she’d train to fight an army that no living man could comprehend. 

 

Arya slipped off her cloak, folded it, and sat down on it. Breathing deeply she imagined the fountain in the House of Black and White. It was cool and still: the water as shallow as a puddle, as deep as eternity. She had no purpose other than to  _ be,  _ she was the vessel through which death flowed. Death didn’t fear. Syrio Forel didn’t fear. 

 

_ Fear cuts deeper than swords,  _ Arya chanted to herself. She was death, and death did not fear; fear was the mind-killer.

 

Slowly Arya rose, her eyes still closed, and with her sword arm raised she began her bloody dance.

 

It didn’t last as long as she would have liked it. Even Faceless Men feel pain eventually; pain is the body’s way of establishing limits, of expressing wrongness. Even a vessel for death deserved to be whole and functioning. She couldn’t stop moving, couldn’t stop  _ thinking,  _ the voices in her brain swirling:  _ Jon is gone, Jon is gone, just like Catelyn always wanted him. We should have never left Winterfell.  _

 

Arya put down her sword and began to stretch and twist, avoiding the positions that required her to balance on her right leg. After she’d rested her ankle she was up again, slashing at invisible enemies, working up a sweat that would only freeze in her hair as soon as she exited the Keep-

 

Jaime was there, leaning in the doorway, watching her. His eyes were hot and his jaw was clenched and Arya paused mid-thrust, looking at him. 

 

“You little  _ idiot,”  _ he said, advancing into the keep. “You’re told to rest, you know there’s a fight coming that even  _ you  _ can’t win, and instead of giving yourself the best chance to be whole you’re fucking it all up by training just because you want to! Fuck your pride, Stark! Get off your foot!” he bellowed, striding up to her and shoving her back. 

 

Arya pushed herself back up and raised her sword, leveling it at Jaime’s chest. Finally, blissfully, her mind was clear again. Now what she needed was a  _ fight.  _ “Who are you to say when I train, Lannister?” 

 

He didn’t rise to the bait; he didn’t draw his sword. “Someone who wants you to  _ live,  _ you stupid girl.”

 

“I’m not a girl!” Arya shouted, fully aware at how  _ that  _ sounded and yet unable to do anything about it. She was drowning in  _ feelings,  _ ones that had been bottled up for years as she concentrated on surviving, not not remembering, on not giving into every instinct in her body that told her drinking from the Many-Faced God’s fountain was the easiest and simplest way to regain her pack. They surrounded her invisible in death- why shouldn’t she join them?

 

Would a  _ girl  _ have survived the things Arya survived? Would a  _ girl  _ have been able to pull the tree of House Frey from the ground? Would a  _ girl  _ have found the will to keep moving, to keep searching, to keep hoping for a pack?

 

She was no child. She was a wolf. 

 

“You’re acting like one,” Jaime snarled. “Mark my words, wolf-bitch: your pride will be the end of you.”

 

“Is that a threat?” she asked, trembling with all the things she shouldn’t feel, all the things she couldn’t say. How dare he try to take this from her? When she danced she felt  _ whole,  _ when she had a sword in her hand and bloodlust on her mind she looked forward without fear. 

 

Jaime stalked closer to her. “No,” he said. 

 

Arya stuck the tip of her sword against his mail-covered breastbone, the little blade bending at the pressure. 

 

_ Do you remember where the heart is?  _ Sandor Clegane had asked her once. 

 

_ No,  _ Arya thought.  _ Mine is gone. Gone, gone, gone.  _

 

“You won’t hurt me,” said Jaime, and he swatted her blade away.

 

“No?” asked Arya, her voice cracking. She couldn’t do this. Not here, not now, not  _ ever,  _ because if she broke again and another Arya was born from the ashes she wasn’t sure she’d be  _ her  _ anymore. She didn’t know if there was enough Arya left. 

 

Jaime grabbed the blade and ripped it from Arya’s numb fingers. He tossed it away and stepped forward again, and this time Arya backed away, shuffling across the dusty, cracked stone floor. 

 

“C’mon, wolf-bitch,” he said, his eyes narrow, a great cat stalking his prey. “What’s the matter with you? Aren’t you going to show me what a big tough thing you really are? Aren’t you going to prove to me that you don’t  _ need  _ to heal, you don’t  _ need  _ to listen to anyone but yourself because you’re  _ Arya Stark,  _ you’re a Faceless Man? You don’t seem so Faceless now, Stark. You seem  _ scared.” _

 

Why was he goading her like this? Why was he pushing her, why, why,  _ why? Where was her pack? _

 

He had her backed against one of the weathered granite walls of the tower and when he came closer she lashed out and punched him in the clavicle,  _ why not the jaw, Arya, why didn’t you hit him where it would matter? _

 

He kept coming, using his weight to pin her against the frigid stone, ignoring the fingers she’d jammed into his side, scraping her skin off against the mail of his shirt. She could likely get away if she hurt him, but she  _ didn’t want to. _

 

“You’re shaking in your boots, wolf-whelp,” he growled.

 

Arya was crying now, silent tears running down her face, and she needed to get  _ away,  _ she needed to be away from Jaime so he wouldn’t see her tears and see… whatever it was that was trying to get out from behind that wall she’d carefully built inside herself, the one that skirted a gulf so wide and deep it made the dark fountain of Death seem like a soup bowl. She slapped at his chest, clawed at his mail ( _ why not his eyes, why not those pretty green eyes? _ ), and shoved at him with her not inconsiderable strength, and he wouldn’t budge. He had her pinned like a maester’s specimen, his body pressing hers into the wall, his gaze focused down on her. 

 

When her nails started to bleed from clawing at his armor he growled and dragged her down to the floor where he pinned her. “Stop fighting it, you little fool,” he said, taking her wrist and pinning it above her head. “Just feel, dammit, before you split yourself apart!”

 

“No,” Arya sobbed, twisting under him. She couldn’t, Faceless girls didn’t feel, Faceless girls weren’t afraid. 

 

Syrio had taught her that:  _ Fear slices deeper than swords _ . 

 

“Tell me,” Jaime snarled, shaking her again. He kicked her legs open and sprawled in the cradle of her hips, grinding her spine against the ancient, cracked floor. “Tell me what’s going on in that head of yours, Arya, before I tie you up and give you a potion and  _ force  _ the goddamn truth out of you!”

 

“I don’t know who I am!” Arya screamed, her voice cracking, her throat raw with sobs she’d been swallowing down. She was still bucking under Jaime and he still held her down, his eyes boring into hers, the deep stained-glass green of a sept window. “Underfoot, Lumpyhead, Arry, Boy, Weasel, Nan, Beth, Mercy! Mercy… I’m a mouse-girl, a ghost-girl, a wolf-girl. A Stark but No One, a Faceless Man but a girl…

 

“I dream about them, Jaime,” she said, finally meeting his gaze, her voice desperate, her tone that of a supplicant begging for absolution. “All the faces,  _ they’re in me.  _ The little girl, raped by her father; the tall girl sold to the brothel, Mercy…

 

“They’re all in there,” she whispered, her voice hoarse, her fingers clinging instead of shoving. “All my ghosts, all around me. They all want something from me in my dreams- revenge, justice, freedom, peace.

 

“I’m so afraid,” she admitted, that black gulf opening beneath her, her tears flowing again. “I’m so afraid that Jon or I will die without seeing each other again.”

 

“What is he to you?” asked Jaime, his voice gentle.

 

Arya searched for words, staring over Jaime’s shoulder at the shadowy depths of the First Keep above her. “Hope,” she finally whispered. “He’s- he gave me my sword. He believed in me, he believed I could do it, and when I wanted to drink from the fountain and  _ die  _ I thought, ‘Jon thought I could do it,’ and I thought that I’d feel better when I got revenge…

 

“He’s the only one who loved me,” Arya sobbed, curling beneath Jaime. “Only Jon. He wanted me with him, he’d listen and play with me. I had to  _ beg you  _ to take me!” she said, her voice edging on hysteria. “I’m so hideous and queer that I had to  _ beg  _ to be fucked, and I  _ know  _ I don’t deserve you.”

 

Now she was hitting him again, her little fists raining down in his shoulders like blows from a smith’s hammer. “You did this!” she shrieked. “You made me feel all these things, you made me think I might live, you said you’d be my  _ pack,  _ you made me think that living was  _ worth something;  _ I’d have been alright dying in the war! I’d be  _ done!  _ And- and it’s not like you’ll survive the war anyway! _ ” _

 

“Hush,” said Jaime, his voice level. That response was so unexpected that Arya blinked up at him, surprised into following his command. 

 

“I am your pack,” said Jaime, his voice serious. “I didn’t think you’d really want me, not really, not once you got home. But you do, and I want you too. I’m sorry I doubted you, I’m sorry everyone doubted you, because if you’d been forced into corsets and elocution classes and stitchery or whatever bullshit highborn girls are forced to learn it would have been an insult to the gods, wolf-girl.”

 

The blood was still ringing in Arya’s ears, and the dark, deep abyss was still whistling below Arya in her mind, but most of what Jaime said was getting through to her. She kept listening. 

 

“I’ll be your pack, Arya, whatever that means. I don’t save just any maiden,” he said with a crooked smile. “And when we go to war, we’ll stand together.”

 

She stilled, and as her terror ebbed away she started to feel her scrapes and bruises and aching ankle and bleeding fingers. 

 

“I don’t know what the fuck to do about your dreams,” he said. “But I’d guess that -  _ that  _ is the reason the Faceless Men need to remain Faceless.”

 

Arya nodded, not trusting her voice. 

 

“And you’ll see Jon again,” said Jaime, pressing his lips to her forehead. “You will; you’ve come too far not to.”

 

“But-” Arya said. 

 

“I know,” said Jaime. “I know.”

 

Arya felt drained. Not bad, but achy and raw and halfway to being ashamed. 

 

Jaime pulled back and his fingers loosened from her wrist. “No,” said Arya. 

 

Jaime raised an eyebrow. 

 

“Not yet,” said Arya, blushing a little.  _ Sansa  _ was the blushing sister, not Arya, but with the way things were going Arya would be only half-surprised to walk out of the First Keep and find Dornish sand dunes instead of snow drifts. 

 

“More?” asked Jaime. He wasn’t… judging her, exactly. Arya could feel him gauging her response. 

 

“Yes,” Arya whispered, letting her eyes fall closed. 

 

Jaime’s fingers tightened on Arya’s wrist and she sighed. “Leave them,” said Jaime, his voice gravelly once more. His hand trailed down over her arm to her throat, his fingers caressing her pulse point thoughtfully, his thumb lightly rubbing the other side of her neck. Arya could feel the blood rushing in her ears- would he?

 

“Another time,” muttered Jaime, and then his teeth clamped into the curve where neck met shoulder. Arya yelped and gasped, sandwiched between the stone floor and Jaime’s body, her skin stinging and then, when the sharp little pain faded, tingling.

 

Jaime chuckled, the sound rumbling in his chest like a purr. “You’re just a little pup, aren’t you?” he said, his fingers sliding up inside Arya’s shirt and rubbing over her warm stomach. “Showing her soft belly to me; what a good girl you are.”

 

Arya’s thoughts were slowing, the overheated gears in her brain finally cooling, and she wasn’t going to think about why she liked this, why she liked being held hard against the unyielding, ancient floor of the Keep, why the idea of being bruised at Jaime’s hands brought her pleasure, why with  _ him  _ she almost welcomed the idea of being ...soft, small, content.  _ Good pup.  _

 

Jaime’s hand kept sliding, right down over her hip and on to her boot, where he grabbed one of her daggers and returned, shredding the band that held her breasts flat. 

 

“I warned you,” he said before tossing the dagger away and taking a breast into his mouth. 

 

He worried her hard nipple like a dog worries its kill, all teeth and heat and curiosity. Arya was panting and her back was arching at the effort it took for her to keep still with her hands above her head, but she felt so  _ good;  _ it was the headiest of things to pass control over to Jaime-

 

_ Liar! _

 

_ No,  _ she thought.  _ Truth.  _ It felt  beyond freeing to pass control over to Jaime like this because Jaime knew what he was doing, and because Arya trusted him to know what she needed, and her trust had been fulfilled.

 

She could sleep beside Jaime at night and she would wake up warm and safe.

 

She could fight beside Jaime and know that if a blade took her in the back, it wouldn’t be his. 

 

She could lie beneath him quietly and know that when pleasure or pain or both were visited on her body, it wasn’t more than she’d be able to handle. 

 

Jaime knew her. Jaime had  _ seen  _ her. And it was knowledge more potent than Lysene rum. 

 

“Focus, wolf-bitch,” he growled. He dug his teeth into Arya’s skin again, just over her hip bone, and she gasped and twisted, feeling her blood rushing to the spot where Jaime’s teeth pinched and his mouth sucked. When he raised his head Arya saw a rose-shaped bruise rising on her skin and she groaned, closing her eyes against the force that was Jaime fucking. 

 

“Wolf-girl,” he crooned from between her legs. He forced them wider with his shoulders ( _ more bruises _ Arya hoped) and settled there, his hand splayed low on her belly, pressing her down.  “Look at me, wolf-girl.”

 

Arya looked down her body at Jaime. He smirked, bowed his golden head, and nosed into her folds. Arya gasped even before he stroked her with his tongue, and that hot wet heat turned her gasp into a shriek. 

 

Jaime raised his head and glared at her. “Quiet, pup, or do you want your sister to find us like this?”

 

Arya wouldn’t have cared if the entire household guard watched; she only wanted Jaime to lick her again. 

 

“Good,” he said, and resumed his task. 

 

He’d been knowledgeable but fumbly their first time in bed together. He’d been learning a new body with a different hand, though it hadn’t bothered Arya at all. They’d been learning together.  _ This,  _ though. Gods, Arya hadn’t known that it was possible to feel like this. 

 

She couldn’t tell exactly what he was doing with his tongue, and she didn’t care. In minutes he had the muscles in her stomach jumping uncontrollably as she panted and fought to keep her hands in place, he’d  _ told  _ her, she was a good pup-

 

And then she came, her legs clamping around Jaime’s ears and her back bowing off the ground like a heavily strung bow. 

 

Jaime rubbed his mouth on her thigh, leaving a sheen of slick behind ( _ gods _ , thought Arya,  _ it’s a good thing I didn’t drown him _ ) and slid up her body. His fingers found her clit and she tried to twist away, even going so far as to use her heels to scoot herself, she was so  _ sensitive,  _ didn’t he know that that was too much?

 

“You’ll take it, wolf,” he said, kissing her. He tasted like the ocean, like bitterness, like love. “You can take it.”

 

His fingers stopped circling and he smacked her cunt again, much like he’d done before, but this time he followed up again with two more slaps in quick succession, spankspank. She was already sensitive, her cunt already felt swollen and sopping, and Arya howled. It stung, but deliciously. It was arousing, but painfully so. It was a dichotomy as was Arya herself, and she hoped he’d do it again. 

 

“I told you to hush,” Jaime said again. “I can see there’s still training to be done.”

 

He hauled her up and told her to kneel. She did, and he asked her to widen her knees, to show him her cunt, and she did, blushing all the while. He moved behind her and knelt as well before tugging her into his lap and down onto his cock. 

 

He slid home without resistance, and Arya shuddered at feeling so full. Her legs bracketed his, her back was to his chest, and still his fingers played over her clit. She whimpered, letting her head fall back onto his shoulder. 

 

“Good girl,” he whispered into her ear. “Now move for me- forward and back, forward and back, there you go.”

 

He met her thrust for thrust, and soon Arya was close to finishing again. 

 

_ Jaime, _ she keened, but before she could topple head over heels into pleasure he’d pinched her clit  _ hard  _ between her fingers, hard enough to hurt, and didn’t let go until she was writhing in his lap. 

 

“Wait,” he said. “Patience.”

 

Arya was crying, but these were cleansing tears, tears of the body and not the soul. She needed to come, needed to find release, yet this was the most free she’d felt since boarding the boat that carried her to Westeros. Who’d have known that this was what she needed?

 

_ Jaime. Jaime would know.  _

 

He was thrusting up into her harder now, his right arm tight around her waist, his hand at her clit.  _ Jaime- Jaime- Jaime! _

 

_ “ _ Alright pup,” he rasped in her ear. “You can finish.” He gave her nub a particularly rough rub and then she was coming apart in his arms, keeping and shaking, and he was twitching up under her, his heat filling her cunt. 

 

They stayed locked together until Arya shivered. 

 

“Scoot,” said Jaime softly, pressing a kiss to the nape to Arya’s neck. She scooted forward and felt Jaime slip out of her cunny, followed by his seed. He fished a handkerchief out of pocket of his breeches and offered it to her sheepishly. 

 

Silly man. Arya wasn’t ashamed of what they’d done. The crying and screaming? Yes. 

 

The fucking? No.  She was clear-headed, now. Clear-headed and tired to her marrow. 

 

Arya wiped his seed from her thighs and dressed herself. 

 

“Arya-” Jaime began as the left the keep. 

 

She shook her head. She wasn’t ready to talk, wasn’t ready to feel like that again. She’d confessed  _ everything  _ to him, had exposed all her secrets and fears, and he hadn’t turned from her. The god of death hadn’t come for her. 

 

She had broken, and yet she was still Arya, still herself. 

 

Still whole. 

 

And horribly in love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello loves! Happy New Year! (Well, almost.) I hope everyone's 2019 improves on the year that preceded it. 
> 
> Several people have asked about Littlefinger in the context of this story, and here is my answer: I'm not going to deal with Baelish. I hope it isn't a big disappointment! I don't think the books are going to have him in Winterfell at all (at least I hope not, god) and I couldn't come up with a //concise// way to work Littlefinger into Jaime and Arya's story. This story is about the two of them, and both Jaime and Arya have little to do with Littlefinger. (Yes, I know he started the war that drastically affected them both, but both Jaime and Arya have little to no contact with him.) 
> 
> It basically boils down to me trying to keep this story as tightly focused on Arya and Jaime as I can, and also having absolutely 0 knowledge of where GRRM is actually going to take Baelish in the plot. 
> 
> As for Bran: several people have commented along the lines of "I'm enjoying this story, but I can't forgive Jaime for Bran." That's 100% okay! But in the scope of this story, both Jaime and Bran are of the mind that... what happened happened, but it also NEEDED to happen. Bran needed to be sent beyond the wall to learn to greensee. There's a little nod in this chapter where Bran tells Jaime, "You're better." To me, that's Bran telling Jaime that current, one-handed Jaime is not the same man that shoved Bran from the tower, and Bran knows that. 
> 
>  
> 
> Please let me know what you think, and a deep, sincere THANK YOU to all who have been supporting this story so far. I love you all- enjoy and stay safe during the last hurrah of the holidays <3


	7. Valonqar

Jaime had spent his first trip to Winterfell incredibly bored. The soldiers weren’t with worth sparring with, the food was bland and totally without spice, and the only interesting thing to do was fuck Cersei. Even that had come with its own set of repercussions, and after the Keep had filled with the wailing of women Jaime had been more than ready to get on the road again.

 

Now all he could do was wish that time would slow down.

 

_Getting old, Lannister,_ he thought to himself. Training with his left hand, staying out of Lady Sansa’s way, and keeping an eye on his wolf-girl left him with a day more full than just about any he’d had in the Red Keep. His day started at dawn- not that a body could tell day from night this far north in winter. The windows were hung with heavy furs which kept the cold out, but also light as well. Only the sound of the kennel-master feeding his charges alerted Jaime that the sun was rising outside his cold little guest chamber.

 

_Their_ cold little guest chamber. Carefully Jaime turned his head on the pillow and looked at Arya in the dim light of his fire’s coals. She looked incredibly small in her sleep; the vibrating intensity that propelled her through life stilled. She was so young, but when she met his eyes- oh, her eyes were a thousand years old. That aching gulf between her age and the things he soul had seen called to Jaime: what other child of ten and seven would know how killing Aerys had changed him?

 

In the gloom, with no one watching, Jaime smirked. _Making all about you again, you arse._

 

For once he’d woken before his bedmate. Usually Arya woke with him, her eyes snapping open cool and alert and aware. Today she slumbered on, curled on her side, her nose bumping against the skin of his chest. Her… fit, yesterday, had drained her. She’d gone through the rest of her day glassy-eyed and vague, and even Sansa had noticed. Arya had gone to bed wordlessly after dinner, and when he slid under the furs beside her she’d clung to him, her little fingers digging into his skin.

 

With Cersei behavior like this had been a game, and he’d known that. He’d thought of tears as a woman’s weapon, like her cunt, like her cold and frosty rage. As a young man Jaime had been amused by Cersei’s bouts of pique, content to wait her out and watch her cheeks flush prettily with rage. And he’d grown older and she’d grown more bitter he’d avoided her during these periods.

 

Arya’s meltdown and subsequent lethargy hadn’t been a plea for attention. It had been a dam breaking somewhere inside her, a baptism of tears. Somewhere in her thick, stubborn skull a little kernel of hope was blooming, and Jaime knew from experience that hope could be the most painful of things. If you had hope, you once more had something to lose.

 

Women who worshipped death learned not to hope. Women who found their way back to their family, who tentatively learned to trust again… those women had something to lose.

 

Her clinging in the night hadn’t felt like Cersei’s need, her want, her willingness to wield a sword by using Jaime as an extension of herself. Arya’s tight little fingers felt like a surrender.

 

With his chest strangely tight Jaime pressed his lips to Arya’s hair before sliding out of bed into the frigid air of a Northron morning. He dressed and relit the fire before strapping on his sword and walking out to face the day.

 

It still felt wrong to wear his sword on the right side. He’d adjusted to other things: he no longer reached for a wine glass with his gold hand; he could brush his teeth without stabbing himself in the cheek, and he was just about brave enough to try shaving with his off hand. But the sword…

 

It felt wrong not to have the sword hilt digging into his left ribs when he sat. It felt wrong to balance the sword on the wrong side of his belt. It made getting on a horse from the left side an incredible pain, and it made Jaime remember, every day, that he’d once been more.

 

The northron soldiers were already training in the yard when Jaime emerged from the castle. Their breath fogged in the air like smoke, but none of them teased him for staying abed. It wasn’t out of respect for _him;_ it was out of respect for his bedmate.

 

The northmen didn’t know what to make of Arya. Most northron houses had one or two warrior women somewhere in their history, so it wasn’t her breeches and sword that made them wary. It was her mystery, the fact that she’d never felt the need to explain her history to them. She’d just appeared out of the snow at Winterfell’s gates, fully grown and wearing the mirror-finish eyes of House Stark.

 

She’d appeared at the gates in the lap of a Lannister, a Lannister who she shamelessly slept beside every night. She’d disarmed two men standing on one leg with a sword a third the size of a regular blade. She gathered information but gave none away, and she worried Sansa, the gentle Lady of Winterfell that they’d all grown to know.

 

Arya was unknown. And so was he.

 

Training went well for Jaime, as well as it could go. He hadn’t been knocked on his arse, and in truth that was happening less and less. Before, with his Kingslaying hand, he’d been a virtuoso with a blade. He’d trained, he’d worked, of course, but he’d always just _known_ what to do, where to feint, how to twist his sword.

 

Now Jaime labored.

 

_Maybe I won’t die,_ he thought cheerfully, trooping back to the kitchens with the rest of the men. _Maybe…_ his thoughts trailed to Arya, of muscular, limber legs and flashing grey eyes. He wouldn’t call what he had hope, but he certainly wouldn’t mind living.

 

They all ate bowls of rough wheat porridge and fried egg, and when they were done they helped the scullery maids break the layer of ice over the kitchen well. Things were done differently here: high born and low, warriors and maids all had to work together to survive the cold. It was a purpose that bound them together more tightly than blood oaths, and Jaime was starting to understand why they were such a loyal lot.

 

The next few days blurred together: training and hunting by day, Arya by night. She seemed to be finding her balance again. She laughed and talked with her sister and Sansa’s ladies at meals, and he hadn’t seen the manic, desperate sheen in her eyes again. At night she whispered to him of her time with the Hound, with the Faceless Men, and he told her of his time chained in Robb’s camp and staggering home to King’s Landing. Their firelight conversations made him feel very young, and also very, very old.

 

Ten days after their arrival in Wintersell, more than a month since Arya saved Jaime in a smoky cave, ravens came in from the Neck.

 

It was Arya who found Jaime in the training yard. She was in stocking feet, leaning on her crutch, and her face was pink with how quickly she’d come to find him. “Ravens,” she said, calling Jaime over. She lowered her voice and avoided the gaze of the other men, who’d all stopped sparring to watch the pair of them.

 

“Your sister’s army marches north,” she said. “And they’re armed for a seige.”

 

“Others take my sister!” Jaime growled, and for a second he could feel the lost fingers of his right hand clench into a fist. “Where’s Sansa?”

 

“The lady’s solar,” said Arya, and Jaime brushed past her into the shadowy hallway. How could Cersei do this? _And people call me Oathbreaker,_ he thought. If only they knew.

 

The thump of Arya’s crutch brought him back to Winterfell and he strode back for Arya. It was the work of a second to bend and toss her over his shoulder.

 

“Hey!” she yelled, smacking him the back of the legs with her crutch. “Put me down you oaf!”

 

He smacked her with his golden hand, momentarily able to forget that he was in a hurry because, in her own way, Cersei was as willing to wipe out the living as the White Walkers were. _Anyone who isn’t us is our enemy,_ she’d said once.

 

“Don’t wildlings do this? Ride off with women tossed over their shoulders?”

 

“Don’t even think about it, Lannister,” said Arya.

 

Jaime knew as well as she did that if Arya really wanted to get down, Arya would be down. They both enjoyed this, this… sparring, arguing and flirting and pushing at each other. It was a joy, true and pure, to play with an equal.

 

Soon enough they were in Sansa’s solar, and Jaime was dumping Arya into a low chair by the fire. One Manderly was in the room, and Sansa was at a small roll-top desk holding the curling raven message. Wordlessly she passed it to Jaime.

 

> _Lady Stark,_
> 
>  
> 
> _Our families fought alongside each other during Robert’s Rebellion. Our House is smaller now, and our marshes are all that keep us safe. I cannot offer aid, but information I can give you:_
> 
>  
> 
> _The Lannister armies march north, armed and supplied for a seige. They’ll likely arrive at your door not two days after this message. I do not know what mischief is afoot, but may you live to see the spring._
> 
>  
> 
> _Regards,_
> 
>  
> 
> _Jyana Reed._

 

Jaime passed the letter to Arya, who scanned it quickly. “Two days,” she said. “That’s not much time to hunt, to gather those remaining in Winter Town to the castle.”

 

“We have to try,” said Sansa. She looked at Jaime; met his eyes and held them for the first time since he’d arrived in Winterfell. “We’ll need your help,” she said. “Most of the men here have never marched to war, have never seen a siege. If you’re true-” she glanced at Arya. “You’ll help with this.”

 

_Ah, there it was. There’s Ned Stark’s bloody stiff honor. It was just looking out at him from Tully blue eyes._ “Of course, Lady Stark,” said Jaime with all the southron courtliness remaining to him. All over again he was thankful that Tywin had forced Sansa into Tyrion’s arms instead of his.

 

Teams of men hunted while the maids and ladies of Winterfell drove teams of great Northron Drafts into Wintertown. The wagons returned with people and supplies, cart after cart, until a deep groove had been cut into the snow and the yard of Winterfell was piled high with crates and boxes and baskets of supplies. Families were shown into the smithy and guard houses and barracks and keep. Tents were pitched in the godswood, and between the tents animal carcasses hung from trees, the blood draining from them onto the snow.

 

“It isn’t enough,” Jaime overheard Sansa saying in passing. “If we ration everything, we’ll last for six months, maybe seven, but…”

 

She was talking to Arya, who responded. “Well, we’ll just have to hope her soft southron army freezes in their fancy armor. This is the North, Sansa, and they’ll never have seen a winter like this.”

 

That was true, thought Jaime. All those soldiers; the one’s he’d trained, the ones that had only joined up for a hot meal or steady pay. They’d freeze, and Cersei wouldn’t even pause.

 

The army came as the sun set two days after the ravens arrived.

 

Jaime was on watch, and he and a northron man saw the snapping banners crest one of the rolling hills surrounding the thick walls of Winterfell. The horses came next, more and more and more, and on each and armored soldier. Wagons lumbered up next, and behind the wagons marched all the armies of the south, Tyrells and Lannisters and the remains of the Tullys. The snow muffled their approach, so that all Jaime could see what his family’s army, and all he could hear was the wind.

 

The moment broke as the bell of Winterfell began to ring, pealing out the alarm, and men and women began to pour out of the keep and onto the walls.

 

The setting sun turned the sky crimson, and the torches on Winterfell’s walls crackled orange and golf. The army spread, a half mile back from Winterfell’s walls, a living moat of hostile humanity. One rider on a white horse came forward.

 

It was fucking cousin Lancel.

 

“Starks!” he shouted.

 

Arya and Sansa stepped forward, Jaime beside them.

 

“Your Queen Cersei, first of her name, asks for parlay,” he shouted up.

 

_Really, sister?_ Thought Jaime, looking at the smooth-cheeked youth. _Lancel? Truly, any blonde_ will _do._

 

“No,” said Sansa. “What guarantee do we have that our leaders won’t be massacred by yours?”

 

Jaime was impressed by Sansa’s cool head, but then she’d trained at the sides of Cersei and Baelish. Tyrion had thought she’d had potential all those years ago. _You were right, Little Brother._ Jaime hoped Tyrion was off in a Lysene whorehouse, growing fat and happy on girls and wine.

 

“She will move her armies back the ridge,” Lancel shouted. “And welcomes you to bring  six members of your household guard.”

 

Sansa turned to Arya, and the women whispered to each other.

 

“My sister will attend in my stead. Starks who walk among Lannisters do not fare well,” she called.

 

_Good move, pup. Cersei will never see you coming._

 

“Agreed,” Lancel said. “Move your men back from the gate.”

 

“Move yours,” called Sansa.

 

Almost numbly Jaime followed Arya and Sansa down the stairs and across the keep to the heavy steel and ironwood gate set in the outer wall. It was strong and multi-layered, as Jaime had heard that the doors of the Wall were designed. An entrant must pass through the outer gate and wait inside the wall before the inner gate would open.

 

Arya and Jaime’s horses were tacked up and brought to them. Jaime boosted Arya onto a blood-bay mare, and he swung up onto Redemption. Lord Manderly and Lord Glover rode behind him, along with the First and Second of the Winterfell retainers. They passed through the gate, and the skin at the back of Jaime’s neck prickled when the gate boomed shut after them.

 

Jaime had expected to feel regret, or hate, or nostalgia, or longing when he saw Cersei again. Instead he felt sad: sad that he’d wasted so much time, sad that something in his beautiful twin had broken and twisted, warping her into the stiff and bitter woman standing before him now.

 

Her jaw tightened when she saw him, and Jaime barely resisted bowing his head to her in mockery. She was all in black, heavy furs clasped tightly around her neck and falling in a curtain around her body. She wore no rings on her fingers, and the silver crown of her Queenship sat atop shaggy golden hair beginning to grey at the roots.

 

_Do I look that old?_ Jaime wondered as the Mountain and Qyburn and Lancel and her Queensguard ranged themselves behind her. _No, surely not. I’ve aged. She’s… withered._

 

Arya slid off her horse and Jaime dismounted his.

 

“Are we such a threat, sister?” he asked, eyeing the guards behind her.

 

“Everything is a threat,” said Cersei flatly. She glanced at Arya, and then back at Jaime.

 

“What do you want?” asked Arya.

 

Cersei’s eyes didn’t flicker away from Jaime’s. “I want my throne,” she said. “I want us to join forces against the dragon bitch.” She looked over at Arya. “I’d be willing to leave the north to you- an independent kingdom under the rule of the Starks again. But the rest- it’s _mine.”_

 

“And if we don’t agree?” asked Arya, standing straight with her arms clasped behind her back.

 

“Then I burn your keep,” said Cersei. “I burn you all.”

 

“People have tried that,” said Arya levelly. Jaime was impressed that she was still acting as though this was a normal, polite conversation.

 

“Not with wildfire,” said Cersei with a twist of her thinning lips. “I’ve enough with me to burn every keep in the North, enough to wipe out the dead once and for all. Winterfell will still be burning when they arrive, Stark bitch, and I’ll be queen of all that’s left.”

 

“Wildfire,” said Jaime dully. _Burn them all,_ she said. _Burn them, burn them all…_

 

The words echoed in Jaime’s skull, and for a moment he could her Areys shouting again, he could smell the charring flesh of soldiers cooked within their armor, could see the sickly green flash of wildfire through his eyelids.

 

“Wildfire,” said Cersei. “You didn’t kill _all_ the pyromancers twenty some years ago, brother. Their knowledge lived on.” Her eyes glinted at him, and for one moment they were runny, rheumy violet eyes in a pockmarked face.  “It won’t be only Winterfell I burn. I’ll set a lake of wildfire between the North and Neck; we already know the dead can’t swim. This land will burn for a hundred years, and the dead with it, and I will sit on my throne, with my children, as Queen.”

 

“You can’t,” said Jaime. How could his beautiful sister have become this? This madwoman, this creature of wildfire and vengeance for imagined slights? Didn’t she know her children were dead?

 

“Don’t tell me I can’t do anything, you fool,” snapped Cersei. “I’m the queen.”

 

“Any woman who must say, ‘I am the queen,’ is no true queen,” quoted Jaime, the words floating to the front of his mind like bubbles in a spring. She had everything she’d wanted: loyal servants, a kingdom at her feet- hers, not her husband’s, not her child’s, _hers-_

 

Cersei lunged and raked her nails down Jaime’s cheek. “ _How dare you quote my father to me?”_ hissed Cersei, her face inches from Jaime’s own. “ _How dare you carry the sword he gave you, how dare you use his name?”_

 

“Careful, sister,” said Jaime evenly. “Your Targaryen is showing.”

 

Cersei shrieked but Jaime caught her next blow, spun her around, and carried her down to the snow. “Kill him!” Cersei shrieked, and Jaime heard, “Kill him, _burn them,_ kill him, _burn him, burn them.. burn them…”_

 

His hands were at Cersei’s white throat, gripping her neck as he had her foot when they’d slid into this world in a rush of blood and screaming. He heard swords being drawn around him, he head Arya shout and the clang of blade meeting blade, but that was _other,_ that wasn’t his fight.

 

This was his, his to do in a rush of horror and indignation and adrenaline. He’d been here before, he’d _done_ this before, but instead of a blade he had golden fingers that bent around Cersei’s neck.

 

She’d whispered to him once, in the dead of the night, _gold shall be their crowns and gold their shrouds_ and he’d asked her what it meant. “Just a line of poetry,” she told him. “It’s trapped in my head and keeping me awake.”

 

_Gold shall be my fingers,_ thought Jaime as he tightened his grip on Cersei’s throat-   _and cold shall be your grave._

 

Her eyes were streaming tears, her hands were clawing at his own, and he could feel them, feel each gouge and cut on his left hand and his right; he could feel her dwindling, could see the wild light fading from her eyes, feel the tremors wracking her body, feel the tether that had formed between them in the womb withering. Beneath his knee her heart thumped desperately once- twice- and she was gone. Her teeth were bloody and her face was purple, and still her green eyes glittered with tears, wildfire to the end.

 

Jaime stood slowly, feeling as thought he’d been crouched over Cersei in the snow for a thousand years; feeling like the Wall being raised, feeling like a dead man given a second chance at life. Arya was to Jaime’s right, lunging at the Mountain with her little sword. Both his ankles were streaming blood; somehow she’d cut the Mountain down to her size, and as Jaime watched she shoved her sword home, in and out of his eye, and as he swayed she dropped her blade, managed to raise his own, and began to hack at his head.

 

Jaime didn’t know what Qyburn had done to the Mountain to make him live beyond death. He didn’t know if Clegane needed his brain; but likely the creature needed his head. Blood spurted and Arya hacked as Clegane managed to get one foot under himself, trying to push himself back to his feet, and then she’d severed his spine and his head rolled grotesquely over to one shoulder and he collapsed, finally and truly dead. Arya looked over at Jaime, and once more Stark grey eyes were the first ones he met after killing his regent.

 

Winterfell’s captain of the guard lay dead in the snow, along with Cersei and the rest of her men. Ahead, close enough that Jaime could see the whites of their eyes, stood the army of the south.

 

They’d watched this- murder, this fight, this coup- with silence and judging eyes. He wondered if they’d heard Cersei’s plan. This was the opposite of his last Kingslaying: this time most of the kingdom had borne witness to his dishonor; this time no one could speculate on what had really happened.

 

Jaime looked around. Lords Glover and Manderly were watching him, along with Arya and everyone else.

 

_Kinslayer, Kingslayer, Queenslayer,_ thought Jaime. _Now I’ve got the set._

 

“You know she brought Wildfire,” he called. “You’d have seen the wagons filled with sand and straw; you knew if they jostled together you’d burn a death no man should die. She wouldn’t have cared.”

 

_Well, they aren’t trying to kill you yet_ , thought Jaime. He pressed on, fully aware that he had no idea what would come out of his mouth next.

 

“A month ago Cersei was shown proof that the Northron legends are true, that dead men walk in the north. She still chose to ride here, to ride here to kill those prepared to defend the living or die trying.”

 

“Are you declaring yourself king?” someone shouted from the crowd.

 

“No,” said Jaime. “Fuck the king.”

 

The crowd murmured, and Jaime glanced at Arya. She was covered in blood, and she was grinning. _I want her,_ thought Jaime. It was like the thought had been dropped into his head all at once and fully formed. _Fuck the throne, I want_ her.

 

“I don’t care who ends up on the throne,” he said. “I don’t want it to be me. I just want to fight and give humanity a chance.”

 

That was all he’d ever really wanted, in a half-formed, unaware kind of way. He’d wanted things to be as fair as they could be. He didn’t want mad queens blowing up smallfolk who were just trying to get their next meal, he didn’t want to fight in an unfair match, and he didn’t want knights running around the kingdoms killing and raping people who couldn’t fight back.

 

Some things would always be unfair. There would always be people richer and smarter and stronger, and suddenly, _finally,_ Jaime realized that’s why knights existed in the first place. They were supposed to make the world a little more fair one fight at a time.

 

He’d done that, in the end. He’d done it with regicide, and he’d wear that taint into death, but there was no shame in it now. He looked down at his golden hand in its black glove. He must have imagined that his fingers and twisted and twitched. “Let’s defend the living and go home,” he said. “Someone else can play at politics. I’ve been a soldier all my life, and likely I’ll die as a soldier as well.” He waved his immovable fingers and a few people laughed.

 

“Choose if you’ll stay or go,” said Jaime. “But know that if you go, that’s one less man standing between your wives and children and the animated dead.”

 

“How can we believe you?” someone asked.

 

“You can’t,” said Jaime. “Not for sure. But do you really think I’d have left my comfy bed in a castle for this-” he gestured to Winterfell and the snow-  “If it wasn’t for a good reason?”

 

More chuckles. People would laugh at anything if it broke the tension.

 

“I’m going back,” said Jaime. “But whoever is still here in the morning- we start training.”

 

Before he turned away Jaime looked down at his sister one last time. The tears had frozen onto her now-cold face, and her crown had fallen away from her short hair. “Farewell,” he murmured, and then walked side by side with Arya back to Winterfell.

 

~~~

 

Sansa said something to him as they walked through the gates, but he didn’t hear it over the buzzing in his head. It was silent, as silent as the empty Throne Room had been in King’s Landing, the thickly falling snow muffling the judgement of an entire castle’s population.

 

Arya was holding his hand and limping along beside him, and that wasn’t right. She wasn’t even holding the correct hand; she had him by his right and yet he’d swear he could still feel her fingers. She led him through the Keep, sometimes shoving people out of the way, and eventually had them in their room.

 

Ser Gregor’s blood was drying and freezing on her in garnet clumps, but she was the one to undress him, to take a cold, wet cloth and run it over his skin before shoving him into bed.

 

“Lie down with me,” he asked as memory threatened to drag him under. “Please.” (The last time he’d begged he’d been in a hot spring, telling another woman that his name was _Jaime,_ not Kingslayer. Jaime.)

 

Arya looked down at her blood-encrusted clothes and shook her head. “I’ll come back,” she said, and then she was limping out the door.

 

Jaime sank into memory. He remembered sneaking into Cersei’s room in the Rock and giggling together in her bed as they listened to the sea crash against the cliffs below. He remembered letting her lace him into one of her dresses, back when they’d been tiny and small with high-pitched voices. The dress had been tight, and he hadn’t been able to raise his shoulders, and he’d understood why Cersei always looked so pinched.

 

He remembered Cersei’s face when she’d been dreaming of Rhaegar. He remembered her face the morning she’d had to marry Robert, how she’d gone to the sept with Jaime’s seed still in her cunt.

 

He remembered the look on her face when she’d howled through the ‘miscarriage’ she’d had with Robert’s child-

 

Arya was back. She was cold and damp and naked and pressed against him beneath furs that smelled like winter and cold, fresh air.

 

Arya didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to. She held him still as Jaime wept for the sister that had only wanted to be a man, for the girl with a golden smile and secrets in her eyes.

 

In the end, she held him when Jaime cried for a golden-haired boy, one who’d believed in gentle ladies and honorable knights.

 

He woke the next morning with sore eyes and a throat so dry that he’d happily attempt to drink the Red Fork. Arya was gone and her pillow was cool.

 

Jaime ran his hand over his face and sat up, feeling soft and naked and exposed. He’d felt like this the morning after his confession to Brienne, and then he’d likened the feeling to that of a hermit crab with a new shell that was a little too big. He’d changed, and he wasn’t used to it yet.

 

_Kinslayer, Kingslayer, Queenslayer._

 

_Kingsguard._

 

_Son of Tywin._

 

_Twin of Cersei._

 

_Goldenhand the Just._

 

“Jaime,” he said out loud, his voice bouncing off the stone walls of the cold room. “Jaime Lannister.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You survived the holidays! Go you! 
> 
> Sorry that this is such a short, transitional chapter. It obviously needed to happen! 
> 
> Thank you for all the support so far! It's deeply appreciated.


	8. The Pack Survives

Arya found Sansa in her solar, surrounded by her ladies and allies. 

 

“There’s something you aren’t thinking of,” she said. 

 

Sansa apologized to some chestnut-haired chit and turned to Arya. “Good morning to you, too,” she said. “What have I not thought of?”

 

“Wood,” said Arya. “If the Walkers can raise the dead, the only way we can keep our men from joining the enemy ranks is to burn them on the battlefield.”

 

One of the ladies in the back corner slumped to the ground, and a knight wearing the chain sigil of House Umber crouched over her. Arya barely resisted rolling her eyes. To Sansa’s credit, the redhead only looked thoughtful. “You’re right,” she said. “We need to add teams going into the forest for lumber as well as game.”

 

“I’ll see to it,” said Arya, nodding to Sansa and leaving the room. As soon as the door closed she could hear people murmuring, talking over one another, the droning hubub of mindless sheep. 

 

~~~

 

Jaime found Arya just as Cersei’s pyre was completed. It was on the west side of Winterfell’s walls, and Cersei’s stiff body already lay on her bed of kindling. Lannister men were pouring oil over the base of the pyre, and Jaime’s fingers found Arya’s as they stood on the wall and watched one soldier light the fire. 

 

“That’s Vylarr,” Jaime whispered. “He’s a year younger than me- he started to train just after I did, back at the Rock.”

 

“He volunteered,” said Arya. “I asked men from the south if they’d help build Lady Lannister’s pyre.” She didn’t do it for Cersei. Cersei had still featured in Arya’s prayer, and Arya hoped that Cersei spent the rest of eternity touring all the seven hells. Arya had had a pyre built for Jaime, so he’d know that his twin hadn’t lay frozen in the northron snow until spring. It was a waste of wood, but … here they were at the end of the world. They could afford just a little waste. 

 

“I’ve got men building bonfires at each corner of the keep, and another at the center of each wall. We’ll need to burn the fallen,” she said as the pyre below caught. “Teams are dragging deadfall out of the wood, and others are hunting.”

 

Jaime nodded, and together they watched the pyre begin to burn in earnest. Arya didn’t particularly believe in any gods but Death (Death’s work could be seen everywhere one looked), and she didn’t have any prayers to give to Cersei. She knew one prayer, and Cersei’s name had only been begrudgingly removed from it. 

 

With Cersei and the Mountain gone only three names remained:  _ Dunsen. Ilyn Payne. Meryn Trant. Valar morghulis.  _

 

Jaime seemed steadier by the time the fire had begun to burn down low. He kissed her hard, his fingers yanking at her hair, but when he pulled away his eyes were clear and dry. “I need to go train,” he said. 

 

“Me too,” said Arya. “It’s been five weeks, Jaime, and the Wall fell seven days past. I don’t know how quickly the dead walk, but they’re coming. We need to be ready,  _ I  _ need to be ready.”

 

Jaime shot her that crooked half-grin. “If we live through this,” he said. “I’m going to take you to bed and keep you there for a week.”

 

Arya remembered the First Keep; remembered the bruises she still had on her hips. “Deal,” she said. 

 

~~~

 

They trained for two days, and on the third came dragons. 

 

The cry went up at dawn. “Riders!” the watchmen yelled. “Riders!” The bell of Winterfell tolled again, and once more everyone ran to their places. Women and children gathered in the Great Hall, Jaime mounted Redemption and rode out of the gates to join the southern troops, and Arya climbed up the stairs of the outer wall. 

 

She couldn’t see the banners the riders carried, not in the half-light of an early winter dawn, but when the dragons dropped below the cloud cover she didn’t need to. This was the force of Daenerys Targaryen, this was  _ Jon.  _

 

He was there, she knew it. Arya ran to the stairs and thundered down them, shoving soldiers out of her way.  A group of horses were standing tacked up in the yard, waiting on riders or orders, and Arya flew towards them, choosing the beast with the longest legs. She vaulted up into the saddle, not feeling anything anymore, and when she galloped out through the wall her horse’s hooves echoed  _ Jon, Jon, Jon  _ in her ears. 

 

She could see the banners now- the three-headed dragon of House Targaryen, the sun and spear of Dorne, an onion on a black sail, a spiked helmet, the Tyrell rose.  She was thundering through the neat rows of tents that had been raised for the southron soldiers, and all she could hear was the breathing of the horse and her own pulse thumping in her ears. 

 

Arya could see a woman with white-blonde hair riding at the front of the army. She was in black and red, her hair was elaborately braided, and she had to be the Targaryen. Next to her-  _ oh.  _

 

“Jon!” Arya yelled, her horse leaving the village of tents behind. She could see the moment he recognized her: his eyes widened, his mouth opened, and he kicked his horse in the belly, leaning low over its neck. 

 

For the length of one shining moment they were both riding flat out towards the other as dawn broke over the North. They met in the middle, Arya sliding down her horse’s flank and then rolling, not feeling the pommel of her sword digging into her ribs. Jon was dismounting too, his horse dancing in confusion, and then Arya was back in her brother’s arms. 

 

“Arya,” he said, his arms tight around her waist and her feet off the ground. He’d held her like this when he’d given her Needle, and then she’d been small enough that he could hold her to him with one arm. She still fit against his shoulder, and he still smelled of the north: wood fires and pine needles and musty furs. He smelled like home, and she was crying, tears soaking into the elaborate fur collar at the top of his dark cloak. 

 

When he leaned back to get a better look at her he was crying too; tears pooling in those soft grey eyes. He still hadn’t put her down, and she wasn’t ready to let go of him either; not yet. 

 

What did she say? What did she to the brother who’d been everything to her for so long?

 

“You grew,” she said as the Targaryen’s forces surrounded them. Arya didn’t care. Jon wouldn’t let them kill her.

 

Jon grinned; there were the dimples that Theon had tormented him for. “You didn’t,” he replied, and then they were laughing and crying and hugging again. 

 

“Gods, Arya, where were you?” he asked, finally setting her back on her feet. 

 

“Essos, mostly,” said Arya. “It’s… a long story.”

 

“They all are,” said Jon, and the smile melted from his face. “After- after all this, you’ll tell me everything, and I’ll tell you. Alright?”

 

“Alright,” said Arya, and for a moment it was like she was nine years old all over again. 

 

Jon held her at arm’s length and looked her over. “You still have your sword,” he said, smiling. 

 

“People kept trying to take it off me,” said Arya. “And I kept taking it back.”

 

The silver-blonde woman rode over. “Jon?” she asked, the question clear in her voice.

 

“Daenerys, this is my sister, Arya. Arya, this is -Queen Daenerys.”

 

_ Ah,  _ thought Arya.  _ Sansa’s worst nightmare has come true: not only has Jon bent his knee to the Targaryen woman, he’s bedded her.  _ She wouldn’t have been this interested in Jon hugging an old friend otherwise. 

 

Daenerys relaxed when Arya was found to be Jon’s sister. “Greetings, Lady Arya.”

 

Arya nodded her head, entirely unfazed to be meeting a Targaryen queen. She’d learned early and she’d learned hard that all men died, high and low alike. Besides- one queen had already died in the North this week. Perhaps another would follow. 

 

“Vala daria,” said Arya. 

 

Daenerys’ pale darker eyebrows rose. “You speak high Valyrian,” she said.

 

“Yes, Your Grace. I spent… much time in Essos after the fall of my House.”

 

Daenerys’ eyes softened, and Arya found her instant dislike of the woman melting away as well. This was Jon: he wouldn’t have bedded a woman he didn’t respect. Arya would give this dragon queen a chance. 

 

“I too fled to Essos when my House fell,” she said. “And it will be a treat to find another with whom I can converse in my mother tongue.”

 

Daenerys looked from Arya to Jon. “Shall we continue?” she asked, a little smile quirking her lips. “Or would you prefer to freeze in the snow?”

 

Jon caught his horse and swung into the saddle. Arya’s had already fled back to Winterfell, and when Jon extended Arya a hand down to help her onto the horse she waved it away. She backed up a few steps, leapt, twisted, and landed on the horse beside Jon. The horse shifted, unused to these antics, and Arya felt more than heard Jon’s rumbling laugh. “I can’t wait to hear this story. Did you train with acrobats?” he asked as the army marched on towards a Winterfell. 

 

“Not acrobats,” said Arya, resting her cheek against the dark wool of Jon’s cloak. For the next few heartbeats- his and hers- she was content. She was home. 

 

A wide aisle had been left in front of the north gate of Winterfell. Jon and Daenerys rode to the gate where Sansa and Jaime and the northron lords waited. Sansa’s lips tightened when she saw Arya with Jon, but she still curtsied to Daenerys. 

 

“Welcome to Winterfell, Your Grace,” said Sansa. “Welcome home, Jon.”

 

Arya remembered that Jon and Sansa had been in Winterfell together for months before Jon had ridden south. She wondered if they’d made up; as children Sansa hadn’t been able to stand Jon. “Father’s son,” was how she’d referred to him. 

 

“Thank you, Lady Stark,” said Daenerys, nodding.

 

“You’re welcome here,” said Sansa, stepping to the side so that the Targaryen household could filter into the yard. 

 

Arya slid off Jon’s horse and bounded over to Jaime, who looked pleased but bewildered when she hugged him tightly, too. “You were right,” she told him. He grinned down at her, not needing an explanation.

 

The most surprising member of Daenerys’ household was riding in the wheeled stateroom at the back of her pack. Arya had been watching Jon and Sansa, wondering what all had gone on there, when she heard Jaime murmur, “Tyrion?”

 

The Imp was sliding down from the wheelhouse. He was dressed like Daenerys’ other advisors, and on his quilted black tunic was the pin of Hand of the Queen. 

 

“Brother,” said Jaime, softly, and then he was striding across the yard and dropping down on one knee to embrace the sibling that he’d long thought dead. 

 

“Jaime,” said Tyrion. “I’m pleased to find you in better company.”

 

“I’m pleased to find you in better conditions,” said Jaime, glancing down at Tyrion’s Hand pin. 

 

Tyrion followed his gaze. “I always said it looked better on me than father.”

 

There was a sad, quiet pause, and Tyrion glanced at Arya, who was watching this exchange from just behind Jaime. “Lady Arya- another Stark returned from the dead, I see.”

 

“Not the dead,” said Arya. “Essos.”

 

“I’ve just returned west as well,” said Tyrion, heading towards the great hall. “Sometime we should compare notes.”

 

Lunch was a loud and noisy affair that likely wasn’t nearly as formal as Sansa would have liked. The protocol of the High Table had been completely abandoned; people sat on both sides laughing and talking and catching up with each other. Westeros had been at war for five years; alliances had been formed and broken and dissolved so many times that most of the men in the seven kingdoms had already fought alongside each other at some point. Arya sat so close to Jon their knees kept bumping, and Jaime and Tyrion sat across from Jon and Daenerys. Jaime had quietly told Tyrion about Cersei’s death, and Tyrion had been surprisingly moved. 

 

Arya couldn’t help but smile. She knew what was coming: knew truths and deaths and unforgettable horrors were on the horizon, but for now- for the span on one meal- everything was alright with the world. The Hall echoed with laughter and smelled of roast meats and candle tallow. Arya was home. 

 

The afternoon passed in a flurry of room arrangements and bed linens and a frazzled Sansa. “I’ve given your room away,” she snapped at Arya in passing. “Since you don’t use it anyway.”

 

Arya just smiled sweetly. “Oh, how smart,” she said. “You didn’t need to tell me, though.”

 

Daenerys took a tray in her room that night, claiming exhaustion after traveling so far so quickly. That was a relief, because at dinner Bran announced, “There’s something I need to tell Jon.”

 

Jon looked over at his lost brother who’d arguably changed the most of all. “What is it?”

 

Bran shook his head. “Later.”

 

“Whatever you have to tell me, I want my family to know.” 

 

Bran shrugged. When the meal ended Arya and Jon and Sansa followed Bran into his room down from the Maester’s chamber on the ground floor. The junior maester was there, the one Arya had scared on her first day back in Winterfell. A Tully? Tarley?

 

“Sam!” said Jon, striding across the room to embrace the other man. 

 

“What are you doing here- your letter about the dragonglass, it came from a Citadel raven,” Jon asked. 

 

“He came with information,” said Bran from his wheeled chair. “The same information I wished to tell you: I saw your mother, Jon.”

 

The hair on the back of Arya’s neck prickled. 

 

“Your mother was Lyanna Stark- and your father was Rhaegar Targaryen. You’re the rightful heir to the Iron Throne.”

 

It felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room.  _ Lyanna’s son,  _ thought Arya.  _ Lyanna’s son; cousin, not brother- not brother. _

 

Sansa’s jaw dropped, Jon’s eyebrows rose, and Sam nodded from the edge of the room. 

 

“It’s true,” he said. “I’ve a record of an archmaester annulling Rhaegar’s first marriage. He married your mother to Rhaegar, and she birthed you in Dorne.”

 

“A Targaryen,” said Sansa disbelievingly. 

 

Arya felt like the world had dropped away from beneath her again. She’d felt like this in Baelor Square when her father’s head had been chopped from his body. She hadn’t even heard the roaring of the crowd through the blood thundering in her ears, and yet she’d head her father’s head thump to the ground. She dreamed of that thump, sometimes. It woke her in a cold sweat. Now her foundation had been pulled away again: cousin, not brother. Kind of the Andals and the First Men, not King in the North. 

 

“There’s proof?” asked Jon calmy. How was he so ...accepting? How was he so cool?

 

“Yes,” said Sam. 

 

“I saw it,” said Bran. 

 

“Hide it,” said Jon. “I don’t want to be King. My name is Jon Snow, and my place is the  north.”

 

“But-” said Sansa. 

 

“Your name is Aegon,” said Bran, still looking out the dark window. “Father knew. Lyanna named you Aegon.”

 

“My name is Jon,” her brother- cousin- said tiredly. Arya wondered what his story was; how he’d come to leave the Night’s Watch and travel south. She wondered now if she’d ever get the chance to ask him. 

 

That was the thing about secrets: you couldn’t unlearn them. You carried them with you forever, and they colored how you viewed the world as surely as a drop of ink could color a glass of water. Too many secrets, and it seemed you stopped seeing clearly at all. 

 

“As you wish,” said Bran, and the rest of the room shifted uncomfortably. 

 

“Do you know how long we have before the dead arrive?” asked Jon.

 

This topic was no better. 

 

“The Wall fell eight days ago,” said Bran. “The Walkers could be here in two.”

 

“The Wall fell?” asked Sam and Jon together, their eyes wide. 

 

“Their leader rides a dead dragon; a dragon that does not need to breathe. Its flame has become lightning, and with it they felled the Wall by the sea.”

 

Jon’s mouth tightened, but his eyes went sad. “I need to tell Daenerys,” he said. “Her remaining two- they’ll have to take their brother down.” 

 

He sighed and moved to the door, his gait that of a man decades older than he was. Arya’s heart ached; thudded painfully for the brother of her soul who had had to bear too much. 

 

“Good night,” he said. 

 

Arya followed him out the door next: she had no patience to listen to Sansa’s questions about Jon being king, no patience for Sansa’s ambition or Bran’s queerness or the young maester’s odd stories. 

 

She couldn’t return to her room and Jaime, either. He’d know as soon as he saw her, because Arya wasn’t Faceless anymore, and this wasn’t her secret to share. Instead Arya climbed through the familiar staircases and passages up to the walls, shivering a little without her heavy outer cloak. 

 

There was a warm spot, one the family and household guards had always known. The great chimneys of Winterfell’s family quarters were clustered together, and the bricks there were always warm, even in the deepest part of winter. Arya headed there now, and even though her feet were steady, her head was spinning. 

 

She felt bad for Sansa all over again- her normal sibling, the one who wasn’t a soothsayer or an assassin, turned out to be the rightful king of Westeros,  _ and he didn’t want it. _

 

She felt bad for Jon- father had known, he’d been the one to find Jon and bring him back. It was the only explanation; he had to have found Jon and Lyanna- or just Jon. Maybe Lyanna had already been dead. But either way, father had known, and he’d let Jon leave for the wall believing himself to be  _ less,  _ to be a bastard, and to not be worth the Stark name. 

 

Arya pitied her poor dead mother, a woman who had died resenting her husband and hating the boy who had shared her home. Arya still couldn’t understand why Catelyn had hated Jon so, but she pitied her all the same. And father- Ned had died without ever speaking the truth. Honorable, stupid idiot.

 

Crouched against the warm bricks and out of the worst of the wind, Arya pitied herself. She’d ...built up this idea of Jon in her head. She’d turned Jon into a static place in her mind, one that meant  _ home  _ and  _ safe  _ and  _ unchanging.  _ She’d turned her memories of Jon into a sanctuary outside of everything terrifying and changing and dangerous in the world, and now she was pouting because he was a person just as complex and damaged as she was. 

 

Nobody talked about this. Nobody talked about how it felt when your best friend fell in love.

 

Arya was an idiot, too. 

 

_ I should go back in,  _ thought Arya, tipping her head back to look up at the stars.  _ Jaime will be worried.  _

 

That was an odd thought too. When was the last time she’d had someone who worried about her?

 

The lack of an answer made Arya feel even more alone out under the indifferent winter sky. 

 

As Arya watched, a massive dark shape blotted out the stars above her.  _ Dragon,  _ she thought. She couldn’t see the color, or even a distinct form, and yet it was breathtaking. More quiet than she’d expect of something that large, graceful and deadly and  _ magic.  _

 

Arya wished Nymeria had come back to Winterfell with her. She wished Nymeria had come at all. 

 

Arya heard footsteps coming up the stairs and she rose, ready to go down, when she saw the newcomer was Jon. 

 

“I thought I’d find you here,” he said. “Will you stay a little longer?”

 

Arya sat back down, and Jon slid down the wall beside her. “I missed this, my first few months at the Wall. I always drew night watches, and I longed for this warm corner.”

 

Arya thought about saying,  _ I missed it too, when I was a blind girl who lived in a damp stone temple for the god of death and never seemed able to get warm,  _ but decided against it. Jon was dealing with enough.

 

“Was it much colder?” she asked. 

 

Jon chuckled without humor. “Yes. Most brothers eventually lose a finger or a few toes to the cold. It’s never warm; just less likely to kill you while you sleep.”

 

They sat side by side together, their breath puffing out into the frozen air in curling clouds of steam. 

 

“Do you want to talk about it?” asked Arya. 

 

“No,” said Jon. “Compared to everything else- it doesn’t matter.”

 

Arya rested her forehead on her bent knees. “You don’t want the dragon queen to know, do you?”

 

“No,” said Jon. “I don’t. I don’t want to rule, I just- I want this to be home again. I want you and Sansa and Bran to be home again.”

 

“You’re my home, too,” said Arya, her voice small. “I missed you so much. I tried to sail North, to the wall, but no one would take me, so I went to Braavos instead.”

 

“We thought you were lost,” said Jon. “I heard a little about Sansa; enough to know she was alive. We heard nothing about you.”

 

“No news is good news,” quipped Arya. Maester Wolkan had always said that when Catelyn was worried about not receiving ravens. 

 

“Not this time,” said Jon. 

 

Silence fell, and this time it wasn’t companionly. This was dread. 

 

“You’ve seen them?” asked Arya. “The dead?”

 

“Yes,” said Jon. “Yes, I’ve seen them. Fought them, killed them. I can’t think of how we’ll win this but- but we have to try.”

 

“How do we kill them?” asked Arya. 

 

“I’ll tell everyone tomorrow,” said Jon. “Daenerys’ army can settle, and I’ll tell all the captains, who can tell all their men.”

 

They stood and looked over the snow-covered roofs of their home one more time. 

 

“Jon- do you remember when I came to you because Sansa told me I’d never find someone to love me?”

 

One corner of his mouth crooked up. “Aye, I remember. Gods, Sansa was mean.”

 

Arya smiled too. “Sansa was perfect.”

 

“And we weren’t.”

 

“Do you remember what you told me?” Arya asked. 

 

“Ah- no, I don’t.”

 

“You told me that it wouldn’t matter that I wasn’t a lady; that I shouldn’t change because someone would love me the way I am.”

 

“I think I was smarter then,” scoffed Jon as they worked their way down the dim stairs. 

 

“I just thought-” Arya almost wanted to take it all back, to not to say the next bit. “I thought maybe you didn’t want anyone to know because she’s a Targaryen, and that makes her your- ah. But you shouldn’t change yourself, even inside, if you love someone. It doesn’t matter.”

 

Jon leaned against the wall in the little alcove at the bottom of the stairs. “That was the worst part,” he said. “Realizing that she- that I- well. I guess the blood breeds true,” he said bitterly.

 

Arya hugged him. “It doesn’t matter,” she said again. “If we fight the dead and win, nothing will matter.”

 

Jon hugged her back, and Arya felt his lips press briefly against her hair. “I’m going to repeat myself,” he said, gruff. “Don’t change.”

 

Arya pulled back, blinking away tears. “Many have tried,” she said, hating the wobble in her voice.

 

“But really,” said Jon, his voice lighter again. “A Lannister? The  _ Kingslayer?”  _

 

Arya just shrugged. “He’s better,” she said. “And we understand each other.”

 

Jon looked thoughtful when she wished him goodnight, and Arya quickly wove her way back to their little guest chamber. They did understand each other, well enough that Jaime knew not to ask what had happened, and only grumbled a little when Arya pressed her frigid toes against his warm legs. 

 

“Are you alright?” he whispered, running a hand over Arya’s hair before tucking her under his chin. 

 

“I’m alright.”

 

“Good to hear it, wolf-girl,” said Jaime, tugging her close. “Sweet dreams.”

 

“Sweet dreams,” said Arya, and followed Jaime into sleep.

 

~~~

 

“There are three ways to kill the dead,” said Jon, standing outside of the Lannister army encampment. He was surrounded by leaders of northron houses, platoon leaders, and army captains. 

 

“With dragonglass, with Valyrian Steel, or with fire.” 

 

Arya fingered the hilt of Needle. She didn’t want to fight without it, but what choice did she have? 

 

“There’s no point in bringing regular steel. It shatters. Queen Daenerys brought dragonglass mined from Dragonstone, we’ll distribute it.”

 

The men listening shifted, nodded. 

 

Jon looked down at his boots and then back up those gathered around him. “The walkers can raise the dead,” he said. “Especially the freshly dead. We have to have teams retrieving the fallen and burning them. Fires have been prepped along the walls of Winterfell, and those fires  _ cannot go out. _ ”

 

The men looked even more worried. For a moment Arya could picture it- the darkness of night, driving snow, smoke and screams everywhere. Blue eyes glowing in the dark, and the stench of burning hair and flesh. 

 

She blinked, and she was back, side by side with Jaime. 

 

“How many?” one of Daenerys’ advisors asked. He had brown hair, a narrow face, and carried a spear just as straight as his spine. 

 

“A hundred thousand? Two hundred? Enough that no man has ever seen them all.”

 

“‘Cept us,” someone bellowed from behind a ridge. Everyone turned to look, and four fur-clad figures crested the hill. One wore an eyepatch, one sported a great red beard, another carried a massive hammer, and the last was Sandor Clegane- the Hound.

 

“What-” said Jon. 

 

“Don’t ask us how we got here, doesn’t make sense to us either,” said the bearded redhead. “The Wall fell with us on it, and we ran split-arse to Castle Black; warned ‘em. The rest of the crows are on their way now.”

 

Jon blinked, absorbing this information. “Good,” he said. 

 

Arya spent the rest of Jon’s speech eyeing the newcomers. It had taken her a minute to recognize the one with the hammer; he was wrapped in so many layers of ratty furs that it had made it difficult to get a clear look at his face: it was Gendry, the Bull, and somehow he’d found himself  _ alive  _ and in the company of a wildling, a reanimated follower of the Red God, and the Hound. 

 

Gendry was alive. Arya wanted to talk to him, to find out what happened, what Melissandre had done to him. She wanted to ask if he’d missed her, for she’d missed him terribly, and because she’d missed him for a while she’d told herself that she hated him for leaving her, too. 

 

Now… now she missed how simple things had been when she slept curled against Gendry in the summery Riverlands. It was a sweet feeling, and a little bit sad. 

 

The Night’s Watch arrived by luncheon, and Winterfell was full to bursting. A squire named Podrick was assigned to sleep on the floor of Jaime and Arya’s room, and the gathering of tents outside Winterfell’s walls stretched on and on, looking almost like a snowy version of Fleabottom. It looked  _ doubly  _ like Fleabottom after the Dothraki arrived. 

 

It was chaos: people everywhere, sigils everywhere, and on every face a look of worry. Jaime passed out little containers of the Wildfire Cersei brought in the afternoon, and everyone moved very gently after that. They knew it was only to be used as a last resort.

 

The only one who refused the little clay jar was the Hound. “You’ll just have to fucking burn me where I die,” he said. “Because I’m not carrying that shit, not for anything.”

 

Sansa was watching the dispersal of Wildfire, and Arya caught her grinning down at her slippers at the Hound’s speech. Hmm. She wasn’t usually amused by vulgarity. 

 

When a tall blonde woman named Brienne walked up to take her clay jar of destruction from Jaime they… paused, looking at each other, the woman’s hand under the clay pot, Jaime’s on top. 

 

“Ser Jaime,” said the blonde woman, inclining her head. 

 

“Lady Brienne,” he replied, bowing his head as well. 

 

_ Oh,  _ thought Arya to herself.  _ She’s the one who saved him. She’s his Jon.  _

 

“I’m Arya,” she said, striding up and sticking out a hand. Brienne took it gently, and Arya had to fight not to squint angrily up at Brienne. Shouldn’t another woman know better than to underestimate her? 

 

“Arya Stark?” said Brienne, surprised. 

 

This was getting old. “I know, I know, I’m not dead,” said Arya. 

 

Brienne compounded Arya’s annoyance by immediately dropping to one knee and bowing her head, causing her floppy straw-colored hair to fall into her face. “I swore an oath to your lady mother,” said Brienne, and behind her Arya could hear Jaime groan. “I swore to see you home safe, and I still mean to keep it,” she announced. “I’ll be your sword if you’ll have me, my lady.”

 

“I have my own sword, thanks,” said Arya. “But you can keep serving Sansa.”

 

“ _ Both  _ Catelyn’s daughters, my lady,” said Brienne stiffly, rising to her feet. 

 

“You can’t be in two places at once,” said Arya. “I intend on fighting. We need every sword we have in the fight, and I’ve seen yours- Valyrian steel. You’d be wasted inside the Keep standing by Sansa.”

 

Brienne’s face looked like storm clouds over the ocean. “I’m not sure-”

 

And just like that, Arya’s patience was gone. Fresh out, fled to coop, not a bit of it in sight. “Let’s spar,” she said, drawing Needle. 

 

The crowd that had been watching their argument pressed back, forming a rough circle. Arya caught a glimpse of Jaime’s face- he was grinning like a lunatic, the idiot man. 

 

“I don’t think-” Brienne started, but Arya was quick to interrupt. 

 

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I won’t cut you.”

 

Brienne drew her sword and cocked her head. “And I’ll try not to.”

 

Brienne opened with an overhand lunge and from there- it was poetry. She’d never trained like this, not in years, not with someone who  _ felt  _ the fight the way she did. Brienne was good- she was very very good- and Arya felt herself grinning, even laughing, even when Brienne’s huge boot caught Arya square in the chest and sent her skidding across the slushy yard. Arya was back up, her body a song, the fight a perfect melody. There was adrenaline, but not the  _ you’re about to meet Death  _ kind. This- well, this felt a lot like sex. 

 

The fight ended with Arya’s dagger at Brienne’s throat, and Brienne’s sword at Arya’s. The yard was silent, every man frozen in place with his mouth open. 

 

Every man but Jaime, who smiling like a moron and clapping his stump and hand together like a lady watching a tourney. The other men began to woop and clap as well, and Arya and Brienne backed away from each other, still smiling. 

 

“Who taught you to do that?” she asked. 

 

_ Syrio, Yoren, Sandor, Jaqen, the Kindly Man, the Waif… “ _ No One,” said Arya. Today was a good day. Today she could feel her ghosts around her, but they weren’t asking them to join her. They were with her, reminding her of all the things she’d learned and all the places she’d been. 

 

Jaime ruined her moment. When she walked by, ready to head inside, he grabbed her, spun her against a wall, and  _ kissed  _ her in front of the entire population of Westeros. 

 

Once again, everyone cheered. 

 

“Get off of me, you oaf,” she said, smacking him, but there was no heat in it. Kissing was fun, too. 

 

“It felt good, didn’t it,” he said. “She’s good.”

 

“She’s good,” Arya agreed. For a moment she mourned for everything Jaime had lost; he’d never know that particular thrill again. 

 

“And so are you,” said her dolt, his grin going even wider. 

 

“And so am I,” she agreed, tugging him down and kissing him one more time. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TA DAA!


	9. O When the Dead Come Marching In

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> True story: I wrote this chapter in November, way before the teasers. I'M SO EXCITED!

Jaime and Arya slept outside Winterfell that night, ready for the dead to come. All of the fighters were out, all but those who would man the walls. Jaime had sought Tyrion out before- before. 

 

“Just think of all the fights you’ve survived so far,” said Tyrion, his eyes not matching the cheer of his voice. “Surely you can manage one more.”

 

“I’ll try, brother,” said Jaime. 

 

They hadn’t hugged goodbye the last time. They wouldn’t do it now.

 

Jaime and Arya were laying in their snow-buried tent. She’d been right; it was warmer under the snow than on it. They weren’t comfortable; at least Jaime wasn’t. He was in armor, she in her leathers, and boiled leather and mail didn’t make for easy contact. That was rather the point. 

 

Neither was sleeping. 

 

“Is this your first battle?” Jaime asked. 

 

“Yes,” said Arya. “And- no.”

 

Jaime knew by now that if he waited she might continue her story. This time, she did. 

 

“I’d been sent by the House of Black and White- sent to bring someone the Gift. I was in a new face, and when you change faces you dream that person’s dreams. It’s different- being Faceless, and you’re going to kill an enemy who doesn’t know you’re coming. But it feels like a battle all the same.”

 

“Why would anyone become Faceless?” Jaime asked, tightening his fingers around Arya’s as they stared up at the canvas of the tent. “It sounds like torture.” Memories were what made you  _ you.  _ Without them…  _ Well, I guess that’s the point,  _ he thought. 

 

“It’s… easier, carrying someone else’s hurts. And no matter how bad it is, there’s a new face coming. It feels temporary, and ...distant. You carry someone’s burdens, but you don’t  _ care  _ about them because you’re Faceless. It just… doesn’t matter. Nothing does.”

 

“You matter,” said Jaime quietly. His heart ached for her.

 

“So do you,” said Arya. 

 

_ I love her,  _ thought Jaime.  _ I’m a moron, and I love her, and I won’t tell her. If I do, she’ll say it’s battlefield nerves and hit me. When I rode north I knew I’d die, and I didn’t particularly care. Now…  _

 

Before he could change his mind and tell Arya everything, the winds changed and the snows arrived. They’d been blowing in from the northwest, carrying little fine flakes with them. Now they shrieked in from the north, snapping flags and pulling at tents. Snow blew heavier, and as Jaime and Arya crawled from their shelter Jon rode by. “They bring the storm,” he called. “The Others won’t be far behind.”

 

Only the howling wind and the creaking of cold saddles could be heard as the living army mustered up. The bonfires were lit, and red light flickered eerily over those waiting to die. Two massive wolves slunk in, and the shadows they cast were prehistoric. 

 

“Nymeria,” Arya whispered, and the massive wolf came to stand by Arya right side; the direwolf’s head level with the horse’s withers. 

 

“What time is it?” someone muttered from behind Jaime. This was the worst part, the waiting. 

 

“Dunno,” another replied. “Sun should have come up by now.”

 

Jaime remembered the stories he’d heard about the Age of Heroes. Hadn’t there been a night that didn’t end? Hadn’t the Last Hero brought the dawn?  _ I hope he wasn’t actually the last fucking hero,  _ Jaime thought to himself.  _ We could use another one.   _

 

The dead, when they came, were quiet. They seemed to melt out of the mist, eyes glowing blue, faces slack and unfocused. 

 

Not the Walkers. They rode dead horses, and though they were  _ other,  _ though their eyes were wrong and their faces frozen, they seemed alive. More and more blue eyes appeared in the dark, stretching back as far as anyone could see. 

 

They didn’t attack. They stayed on the rise, their dead horses unmoving, more still than any living creature could be. No arrows were loosed, no orders given. The living and the dead watched each other, balanced on the precipice of destruction. 

 

“Fight well, pup,” said Jaime, not trusting himself to glance over at Arya. Tyrion was right: just one more battle. Just this one more.

 

“Come home, Jaime,” said Arya. 

 

He looked over at her, he  _ had  _ to. She was looking at him, the corners of her mouth pulled up in a sad little smile. Her grey eyes were soft, like mist over the sea, and they told him everything he needed to know.  _ I should have told her,  _ Jaime thought.  _ I should have told her I love her.  _

 

There was a great thump overhead and everyone looked up at the walls of Winterfell. Daenerys’ dragons were balanced above the armies of the living, Rhaegal on the wall, his great talon’s gripping the stone, and Drogon balancing on the highest tower of the keep with Daenerys on his back. They waited, scenting the air and watching the cloud cover. 

 

Jaime knew what they were watching for. Arya had told him; told him that the leader of the Others rode a dead dragon that breathed crackling lightning. 

 

It dropped below the cloud cover silently, its great wings making no noise, the large eyes glowing eerie blue. Drogon shrieked when he saw his undead brother, and the battle for life began in dragon fire. The dragons took off, great peals of flame sweeping along the assembled wights, and overhead Jaime could see the clouds flickering red and blue with dueling flame. 

 

The wights that hadn’t burned began to run, to topple forward like puppets, their eyes glowing blue and air hissing through their slack jaws. They had weapons, ancient weapons sometimes, but they didn’t need them: they felt no pain and experienced no fear, and if their ancient iron sword or axe disintegrated they could rip at the flesh of living men with sharp, cold fingers.  

 

Jaime didn’t have time to think about any of this; as it had since he was thirteen the warmth and adrenaline of battle reduced his thoughts to the next swipe, the next dodge, the next jolting spin of his horse. His legs closed around the barrel of Redemption as surely as they always had, a man at home in the saddle, and for a moment he and Arya were riding side by side into the fray before he lost her in the chaos of war. 

 

Most of the wights were on foot, and that gave Jaime a slight advantage that they didn’t have. It still felt wrong to feint to the right, but Redemption was a good horse and he knew what to do; he could feel Jaime leaning to dispatch the dead that surrounded them. 

 

Jaime caught a flash of white light up ahead of him, brilliant in this endless storm of night and deep red shadows. He recognized the sword before the wielder: Dawn, carried in the hands of a man that Jaime didn’t immediately know. Dawn wasn’t usually carried by someone unworthy of her; the Dayne family left her over their hearth rather than sully her legacy with an inferior fighter or an inferior man. She’d hung in a place of honor since Ned had returned her to Dorne, but now, when every sword was needed, she rode again. 

 

His lapse of attention almost cost Jaime the war. 

 

A wight, seemingly unarmed, had Jaime by the leg and was attempting to pull Jaime from his horse. It was the wrong side; sword blades were pointless this close on, and Redemption was struggling against the hard pull of the dead man, its eyes glowing bright and unblinkingly. 

 

There was only one thing to do: Jaime kicked out of the stirrups and fell, shoving the wight away as he did. Redemption thundered off, and it was a race against time for Jaime to find his sword and his feet again before the wights gathered to rip him apart. It seemed their preferred way of killing; already the remains of living fighters were scattered over the snow. As Jaime hacked at the wights around him he wondered if the Walkers could reanimate a man in parts. 

 

He was fighting well, fighting with a desperation he’d only known a few times before, but it wasn’t enough. There were too many wights, and they only needed the smallest of openings to take him down. 

 

When he forgot, again, that he carried no shield, an ancient spear caught him in his left shoulder, his good shoulder, bouncing dully over flesh and burning all the while. He arm went wet, and his sword was slippery in his hand. 

 

“C’mon, stupid,” someone called from behind Jaime, and he knew that could be only one person. Arya rolled her way through the wights, her two obsidian daggers flashing in her hands. 

 

“Nice to see you, too,” grunted Jaime, ignoring the throb in his arm as he lifted his sword again. He knew it would be agony later; but for now adrenaline dulled the effects of his wound. 

 

They fought back to back, her daggers glinting, his sword flashing. 

 

Fights didn’t usually last this long. Most men died in the first horrible clash, and after that the luckiest men and those with the best endurance survived. Most cheap swords bent, and spears snapped. Sieges could last, and wars, but actual battles? The odds were usually apparent quite quickly. 

 

They weren’t on the living’s side. 

 

Jaime lost all track of time: he felt Arya at his back, and he felt doom at his front; darkness and the dead all around him.  _ I’ve dreamed this,  _ he thought.  _ No bears this time, and I can’t see Brienne. But I’ve dreamed this.  _

 

There was a shriek up ahead. Jaime blinked through sweat and snow to see Dayne go down under a pack of wights, Dawn’s gleaming light seemingly gone out. That couldn’t happen-  _ the flames will burn so long as you live,  _ Jaime remembered.  _ Do I live as long as the flame?  _

 

He began hacking through the wights, ignoring their snapping teeth and grabbing fingers, forcing his way to the Dayne’s side. His toso was over the wight’s blade, and Jaime felt another blade piece his skin as he bent to grab the sword. 

 

He picked it up, reaching for it with his right hand, idiot man, but as his golden fingers touched the sword they sparked, flashed,  _ gripped.  _

 

He rose with the Sword of the Morning, and white flames ran from the sword to his hand and back again. Jaime saw Arya’s eyes widen, and in her distraction a wight got inside her defences and an obsidian dagger spun away into the dark. 

 

It was the work of a moment for Jaime to cut down the dead around them, it was a  _ song.  _ He was whole once more, for this, the last fight, his golden fingers  _ his,  _ the sword long and sharp and  _ right,  _ his body trained to do this one thing and to do it well.  _ Thank you, Ser Arthur,  _ he whispered. Here was redemption again: the most honorable, skilled knight in the Kingdoms had forgiven him. Twenty some years later, and Jaime had been found worthy. 

 

“Here,” he shouted, shoving his nameless gold-hilted sword into Arya’s empty hand. 

 

She took it without hesitation, and together they danced. 

 

Jaime could see Brienne and the Hound in the distance, surrounded by the carcasses of bones and dead men. Smoke was heavy in the air now, and once more Jaime could smell dragon fire and the flesh of charring men. 

 

He fought his way back to the wall, trying to look around as he did,  _ Where was Arya, where was Brienne, where were the living? _

 

There were more flashes of light from sky, a shriek that no man had heard in three hundred years, and then the earth trembled as something massive and living crashed to the ground. 

 

At least one of the dragons was down.

 

A figure danced out of the driving snow, holding three wights off with one blade. Jaime knew those moves. “Where in the seven hells have you been?” he shouted at Bronn. 

 

“Work!” said the knight, and then he was lost into the night once more. 

 

Jaime caught sight of Brienne again, and the Hound, and past them a small group of men trying and failing to hold Winterfell’s northern gate. There was a glint and Arya bobbed up too, all of them trying to force themselves through the press of wights to get to the gate, to  _ hold  _ the gate, and none of them would make it in time. 

 

Jaime tried to reach them, but he couldn’t, he knew he couldn’t, not even channeling the spirit of Arthur Dayne. He watched, helpless, as Arya went down under a mob of wights. He heard her screams, they echoed in his head, merging with the shrieks of her uncle as he burned to death in his armor and Aerys cackling,  _ Burn them all!  _

 

Jaime saw Brienne look to Arya, look the the gate, and back again-  _ I swore an oath,  _ she’d told him.  _ I mean to keep it.  _

 

_ So many bloody oaths!  _ thought Jaime, swinging his sword again.  _ How do you pick which to keep? How, how how? _

 

He saw Brienne’s struggle, he knew the decision she faced as she wavered between Catelyn’s daughter and all those left in Winterfell, and when she turned to the gate Jaime wept, the tears falling to the snow and freezing, crystalline diamonds of misery and grief and lost honor. 

 

She picked the greater good. She chose to take down her Aerys. And she chose to walk away from her bloody, pig-headed concept of honor. 

 

The great blonde woman made it to the gate, and then the Hound was there, and someone staggered from the west side of the wall with a great spiked hammer, and Jaime was cutting his way to Arya and pulling her out of the snow, ignoring the blood streaming from a cut on her temple that had slicked her hair to her head in a sheen of red, ignored the way she favored her right wrist when he tugged it. 

 

They made it to the gate. The made it in time to see Sandor Clegane look around him, absorbing the sea of dead men screaming like tea kettles, and plunge into the fray. Beric lay at his feet and the Hound knocked wights away, plunged his hand into the dead knight’s pocket, and held up a little clay jar. 

 

“Come get me, you cunts,” he roared before wading deeper into the dark. There was a flash of green, a bellow, and a shriek, and the Hound was gone. 

 

Jon appeared out the dark. “Fall back!” he yelled. “Back to the Keep!” 

 

An arrow came out of the dark and hit Brienne with a wet  _ twack;  _ the shaft buried in her unarmored throat. 

 

_ “Brienne!”  _ shouted Jaime, but he knew it was too late, knew his friend was gone. 

 

The great gate of Winterfell creaked open just enough for a man or two to slip inside. The wights redoubled their attack, and Jaime was vaguely aware of Arya sobbing as she watched Jon hold them off, his longsword flashing in the dark, reflecting the thin flame that still licked along Dawn’s blade. He was the last into the tight space in Winterfell’s wall- the inner gate wouldn’t open until the outer gate was closed. 

 

Eventually the gates boomed shut like the sealing of a tomb, and behind the surviving fighters the inner gate began to rise. 

 

They staggered into Winterfell’s yard, ignoring sore muscles and wounds beginning to make themselves known. Jaime felt Dawn clatter from his fingers, and when he looked down his golden hand was false again, a poor simulacrum of what once was. 

 

With his left hand he picked Dawn up and sheathed it. Arya was still clutching his nameless Lannister blade, one that had been forged from Ned’s ancestral sword. It should be hers by right. 

 

Another group of fighters staggered in from the southern gate, these mostly from Daenerys’ army. The dragon queen herself was being carried between two of her Unsullied soldiers. She was covered in soot and blood, her braids had been singed, and through her rent clothing Jaime could see her flesh blooming with burns. Her silvery head lolled, though her eyes were slitted and open. 

 

“Daenerys!” shouted Jon, running to the side of the Targaryen woman. He scooped her up and carried her into the keep, murmuring to her as he did. 

 

Maester Wolkan and the Tarley boy were treating wounded in the the yard. A brazier had been lit, and men who were able to walk dipped broth into wooden cups and carried them to their immobile counterparts. 

 

They’d started the battle with nearly ten thousand men- a preposterous number. The tents had stretched all around Winterfell’s massive walls, out for at least a quarter of a mile. Only a few hundred men had made it back inside. 

 

Jaime found Arya slumped against the wall of the blacksmith’s forge, one hand to the still-bleeding cut on her head, the other wrapped tightly around the hilt of his sword. 

 

He crouched down in front of her, half convinced he was dreaming.  _ He’d lived.  _ They’d  _ both  _ lived, and living was a habit: you just kept on doing it. They could still die, and likely they  _ would  _ still die, but Jaime hadn’t thought he’d get even this far. This was a gift. 

 

“You need to see the maester, wolf-girl,” said Jaime, gingerly touching her cheek. 

 

“You too,” she said. Her voice was raspy but strong. When Jaime looked down at himself he was surprised by the amount of blood he saw there. Dead men didn’t bleed, so it must be his. 

 

“Me too,” he said. 

 

Maester Wolkan was called inside to tend to Daenerys, so Sam was the one to sew up Arya’s forehead and side. He set her wrist as well, and then offered to stitch Jaime, too. 

 

“I can do it,” said Arya. “If you trust me.”

 

_ I trust you with everything,  _ Jaime thought, tugging off his shirt so she’d have better access to his various wounds.  _ My life, my skin, my heart. It’s yours, pup.  _

 

Arya poured hot wine over his shoulder and back and thigh, and then slowly and methodically stitched his skin back together. It hurt less than the cleaning of his stump had, but only barely. His jaw ached from clenching his teeth, and he thought that likely there wasn’t enough honey in the whole North to dress all the wounds in Winterfell. 

 

Jon had come back out by the time they’d both been put back together, and without anything being said they followed Jon out onto the wall. 

 

The army of the dead seemed just as full, just as unstoppable as it had earlier. No one knew how much time had passed; the darkness hadn’t wavered. They only knew that the dead stretched on forever. 

 

The one who appeared to be wearing a crown of ice and bone walked out of the crowd, the wights shuffling out of his way without blinking. Lumbering behind him was a giant, it’s furs worn through from age, its tree-trunk club dragging on the ground. 

 

The Other looked at them, up on the wall, and then turned to look at a raven as it swooped overhead. They all watched the bird, which wobbled, plummeted, and pulled up at the last second. 

 

A woman screamed inside the Keep, and seconds later Jaime, Arya, and Jon turned to see Sansa sprinting out of the Hall. Her hair was frazzled around her face, and she yelled, “It’s Bran!”

 

They left sentries standing on the wall and ran down to the hall, where Bran lay on the floor in front of his wheeled chair. His eyes were open and totally white, and Jon’s mouth went grim. “He’s skinwalking,” he said. 

 

“The raven,” Arya breathed from Jaime’s side. Her hand was turning purple beneath her wrist, and Jaime remembered all over again how small Arya was, how delicate the balance of her life was, as all lives were. 

 

“Skinwalking?” he asked her. 

 

“He put his mind in that raven outside,” said Arya. “To spy on the Others.”

 

“Like you do with wolves,” said Jaime. 

 

“Yes,” said Arya, her brow furrowing. 

 

There were so many questions, but no time for answers. 

 

~~~

 

Arya was full of pain and concern for her siblings. Jon was kneeling next to Bran, who twitched lightly on the rushes of the keep. Could you be trapped in an animal dream? If the animal died, did you?

 

Before she could suggest putting Bran back in his chair a horrible howling, cracking noise echoed through the Keep. The noise seemed to come from the air itself: the shattering of rocks in winter, cold beyond their breaking point. The shrieking of the wind, the crack of ice on ice groaning and giving way, and in the midst of the terrible noise, a voice-

 

“ _ Starks,”  _ it said, the words the sibilant hiss of steel over a whetstone. “ _ The answers you need lie with the thirteenth Lord Commander. Seek them if you wish for peace…” _

 

Sansa had her hands clapped over her ears. Bran was convulsing in Jon’s arms, and Jaime had drawn that long, pale blade. 

 

“What was that?” he asked. 

 

“The Night King,” said Jon as Bran slumped, suddenly still.

 

“Couldn’t you hear him?” asked Arya. 

 

Around her everyone murmured  _ no, _ shaking their heads. 

 

Jaime cocked his head and looked at her, his eyes worried. “It sounded like- rocks, and death.”

 

“Oh,” said Arya. She turned to her sister. “You could hear the words, couldn’t you?”

 

Sansa nodded. 

 

“What did he say?” asked Jaime. “What does he want?”

 

“He told us the answers are with the thirteenth Lord Commander,” said Arya. 

 

Jon had wrestled Bran back into his chair, and Bran’s eyes were closed now. “Someone take him to his room and watch over him,” Jon called. 

 

An older knight stepped forward. He had a bloody bandage wrapped around his left arm, but otherwise looked unhurt. “I’ll take him, m’lord.”

 

“Thank you, Davos,” said Jon. 

 

“We’ll need torches,” said Arya. She didn’t want to do this, but she must.

 

Sansa nodded, and when a squire brought her a bundle of treated torches she lit them at the fire. Everyone was watching with curiosity, fear, and wariness in their eyes. Magic hadn’t been good to the smallfolk over the years, but the Starks had. They’d let this play out a little longer. 

 

Knights and maids and farmers and soldiers parted to let the little contingent of Starks (and one Lannister) through the crowd. They exited the great hall and walked towards the First Keep, pausing at the heavy door. 

 

“I always hated the crypts,” said Sansa glumly.

 

“I’ve dreamed of them,” said Jon quietly as he wrenched open the doors. Cold, dead air puffed out. “I dreamt that something in them would be my doom.”

 

Arya wanted to comfort her brother, but what could she say? Their doom lay just outside the gates, and inexplicably it was giving them a truce; giving them time to find answers. The Others wanted something other than the destruction of all mankind. But what?

 

They wound down the steps into the dim light of the crypts. The stone faces flickered in the light of the torches, and as she always did Arya avoided looking at the prepared and unsealed tombs: her tomb, her siblings’ tombs, the places where their bones would rest. 

 

Arya wasn’t afraid of death, but she was afraid of the grave. 

 

Once they were out of earshot and walking down the slight slope towards the older and older tombs, Arya began the story. She knew Jaime was curious and had only been holding his tongue because he was smart enough not to want to cause a panic among the survivors. 

 

“There are many legends about the thirteenth Lord Commander,” said Arya. “And the only thing the stories agree on are that he was a Stark.”

 

“Is that why you were the only ones to hear the message?” asked Jaime. 

 

Arya shrugged. “I don’t know. The legends said he turned from his vows and married a woman as pale as a corpse, one he found beyond the wall.”

 

“You don’t think-”

 

“We don’t know,” said Jon. “We don’t know anything.”

 

Arya wondered if he’d cut off speculation on behalf of the Starks, or on behalf of the Night’s Watch.

 

The walked on in silence, spiraling further and further into the earth. That had always bothered Arya, too: how had Bran the Builder known how much space would be needed? Most crypts had the oldest graves at the top and then were gug down as more space was needed. These were the opposite, and one day, eventually, the crypts would be out of space. 

 

The faces of dead Winter Kings flickered by, and still the little groups walked down into unparallelled darkness. There was a pressure to this blackness, it was more than a simple lack of light. This was the darkness of a space that hadn’t seen a spark in hundreds, maybe thousands of years. These were depths far flung from the light. 

 

Eventually they were near the end of the crypts, deep in the ground beneath Winterfell. They were far enough that the air was almost warm; their breath no longer steamed. The thirteenth Lord Commander was the fourteenth statue; he wore no crown, and his was the only statue to face the side rather than forward. 

 

“Now what?” asked Sansa, looking at the heavy marble slab at the statue’s feet. 

 

Jon, Arya and Jaime looked at each other. Jon got on one side of the tomb and Jon and Arya took the other. The marble was heavy, but as they grunted and cursed it slid far enough back that torchlight could shine inside. 

 

Not even the bones of the thirteenth Lord Commander remained intact. Inside was an empty space, dust, a wax-sealed parcel. The Starks and Jaime looked at each other again, and it was Arya who reached into the tomb. 

 

She’d dealt with death before. There wasn’t any reason to break out in gooseflesh over this. 

 

Even the wax was dry and crumbling, and as she laid the parcel carefully on the floor little pieces broke away. Inside was a wool cloak, and inside of that-

 

“The Black Book of the Nightfort,” read Jon, his voice low. 

 

“What is it?”

 

“Black Books are where the Nights Watch record deaths and attacks and votes and- everything,” said Jon. “Each castle has them, going back to the beginning. The Nightfort was one of the earliest, and its records were lost…”

 

Gingerly Jon reached out and turned a page. The old vellum was dry and brittle, and the ink was faded. “This is the first book,” he said. “It talks of Bran the Builder- of the Wall, the first brothers of the Night’s Watch.”

 

Carefully he turned more and more pages, scanning for names. “Sam should be doing this,” he said. “He complains that all we know was written down hundreds of years after the Wall was built.”

 

“Is that a good idea?” asked Sansa. “We don’t know what it says yet.”

 

About halfway through the book Jon paused. “Here’s the election,” he said. “On this day the thirteenth Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, Cathal Stark, was elected.”

 

“We’ve never heard of him,” said Sansa. “Or his name.”

 

There was a long pause, and Arya said what the others must have been thinking. “They wouldn’t have spoken of him if he married a White Walker,” she said. “They would have tried to forget his name.”

 

“But he’s buried here,” said Sansa, glancing at the turned face. 

 

“The North remembers,” said Arya quietly. “If the Brothers wouldn’t keep him, the Starks would give him a place to rest.”

 

Jon turned another page, and a corner of the ancient skin crumbled in his fingers. “He took a bride,” said Jon. “He broke his vows, and swore to all who protested that it was done for the realm. The maester writes of sacrifices and tunnels, but adds that no one had verified the rumors.”

 

“Was she an Other?” asked Arya, slowly. 

 

“It says only that she was never cold, and she took the Lord Commander’s soul and will from him.”

 

“Is there a name?” asked Jaime. 

 

“The Night Queen.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! I know several of you were disappointed at the last couple chapters. Cersei going north was weird (I absolutely agree), and I know you were hoping for more in-depth reunions of certain characters. The thing is, most of the characters that WE are attached to aren't characters that Arya and Jaime are emotionally attached to. Plus... I didn't want to bog the plot down having characters reminiscing together too much. 
> 
> I really hope this chapter helped redeem me in your eyes. I still like the way I've ended this story, so I'll stand by it! 
> 
> I truly, deeply appreciate all the support that's poured forward for this fic. It means so much to me, because this was one of those stories that felt like it had a lot of *me* embedded in it. I love you all, and I hope you have easy, enjoyable weeks!


	10. Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Our Stories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: pregnancy of secondary character mentioned; no graphic details of said pregnancy.

“This is fascinating,” said Sam, pouring over the ancient book. His face was flushed and his eyes were wide; it was nice to see someone having such a good time while the army of the dead camped outside. “It was a treaty. The Others retreated to the Land of Always Winter, and in return humans wouldn’t trespass there.”

 

“We broke the treaty,” said Sansa. “The Wildlings, and the Night’s Watch…”

 

“There’s, ah, more,” said Sam. 

 

Jon had been sitting by the fire, his elbows resting in his knees and his head hung low. “Craster’s sons,” he said, and everyone turned to look at him. 

 

“Who’s Craster?” Arya asked. She wished she knew more about Jon’s life at the Wall. It sounded horrible, and exciting, and terrible, and fascinating. 

 

“Craster was a wilding,” said Sam, blushing and looking up at the ceiling. “He- ah- he took his daughters as wives. Every daughter over and over.”

 

“He left his sons in the woods as newborns,” said Jon. “On a stump. I followed one- it was the first time I saw a Walker. He came for the child, and we let it go. Craster left all his sons to the Others.”

 

“Babies,” Sansa whispered, her fingers over her mouth as though she could hold the truth in. “Little babies, given to the dead.”

 

“It’s in the treaty,” said Sam. “Cathal Stark was keeping to it- he took a Walker to bed, and I assume they gave their children to the -ah, bride’s family.”

 

“So what do we do?” asked Sansa. “We’re not going to give them children, are we?”

 

Everyone turned to look at her. 

 

“Well, we aren’t?” she said again, her cheeks flushing. 

 

“No,” said Jon. “We aren’t. Maybe we can reach a new treaty.” 

 

Arya looked at him from her spot in Jaime’s lap. He was in a chair across from Jon, and he’d tugged her into his lap as soon as they’d returned from the crypts. He’d been quiet and patient, and for the first time Arya realized that Jaime likely had access to more information about the politics and history of Westerosi rule than anyone else left alive. He’d outlived… five rulers? He’d been related to two hands of the King and had stood countless hours of guard outside the King’s chambers or the Small Council room. 

 

He was used to this. 

 

“What could they possibly want?” Arya asked, and Jaime stroked his palm up and down her back. Nobody had said anything about their seating arrangement. No one had even blinked. 

 

“I don’t know,” said Jon. “But they want something. Otherwise, they’d be killing us.”

 

That sentence hung in the air like a noose. 

 

“We have to try to talk,” said Jon after a while. He pushed himself to his feet and walked slowly to the door. 

 

“How’s Queen Daenerys?” asked Sansa as Jon paused in the doorway. 

 

“Dying,” said Jon, and he closed the door behind him.

 

When he left, it was a long moment before anyone moved to follow him. 

 

Arya slid off Jaime’s lap and broke the stillness. Jaime followed her to the door, and the two of them climbed the stairs after Jon. She had no idea how much time had passed since the storm had come- it could have been a few hours. It could have been a few days. She knew she should eat, but she wasn’t hungry. She knew she should want sleep, but the idea of it gave her the jitters. She wanted the war to be over… but she wasn’t ready to die. 

 

Jon was at the top of the wall, looking down into the blue-eyed army. The leader of the Others was still waiting where he’d been, snow swirling around him. 

 

The terrible, unearthly voice came again, the sound like sap freezing in trees. “ _ Did you find my terms?” _

 

“We found your history,” said Jon. 

 

“ _ Then you found my terms.” _

 

Around Winterfell women were silently crying and people were clapping their hands over their ears. 

 

“What do you want?”

 

_ “Peace between our kinds. Space for the living, and space for the dead. New brothers for me to raise, and new brothers to rule. We will rebuild the Wall, stay in the Winterlands, and fade with magic from the forefront of the world.” _

 

“What do you want in exchange?”

 

“ _ Every few generations a Stark man must rule on the Wall. Every few generations our peace will be rewritten in blood: a sharing of yours and mine. Marriage, and children, and peace.” _

 

“There are no Stark men to rule the Wall.”

 

“ _ Your watch has not yet ended, Lord Commander.” _

 

Arya realized she was crying. There was only one way this could end. 

 

“Are there women of your kind?” Jon asked. 

 

“ _ Not yet _ .”

 

“No,” said Jon, and Arya heard his voice crack. 

 

“No,” Arya echoed, feeling her knees go weak. Jaime hauled her against him, pinning her to his side. 

 

Arya hadn’t buckled when her father’s head hit the platform in Baelor Square. She hadn’t collapsed when her friends were killed along the Kingsroad, when the Tickler was murdering people day in and out, when she saw women raped, or when she sailed away from everything she’d ever known. 

 

She hadn’t allowed herself to falter, not ever. She couldn’t. She had to return to Westeros, had to avenge her family, had to do what she could. 

 

Now it was all tilting again. 

 

“ _ A queen lays inside dying, taking her unborn child with her.”  _

 

A muscle in Jon’s jaw twitched as he clenched his mouth shut.  _ It’s his,  _ Arya thought.  _ Jon’s baby, dying with Daenerys.  _

 

“ _ She could live forever,”  _ said the Other, his voice like ice shattering as it slid off a branch. “ _ And your child. Forever, freely.”  _

 

“No,” Jon growled, color rising in his cheeks.

 

“ _ It is not your decision to make. Ask.” _

 

“No.”

 

“ _ ASK.”  _

 

Jon turned away from the wall, blinking hard. Arya slid to the stone as he passed her; this was for him to do. This was for him, as killing Lady had been for Father. Arya wept while Jon talked to his queen, his dying love. Jaime crouched and held her and said nothing. There was nothing he could say. 

 

Arya didn’t know how long it had been when Jon reappeared. He didn’t say anything to the Other, just looked at Arya and jerked his head towards the stairs. On numb, wobbly legs Arya followed him down to the yard. 

 

“She said yes,” he whispered. He had silvery tear tracks on his face, and Arya was frozen in place, afraid that if she tried to hug Jon now he’d shatter under the weight of all the burdens he carried. “Do you know what she said?”

 

Arya shook her and Jon tried to smile, bitterly, devastated. “She said, “Jon, you died for your beliefs. Let me die for mine.””

 

He turned his face to the wall and wept silently. Jaime turned away and all Arya could do was rest a hand on Jon’s shoulder. It lasted thirty seconds, maybe less, and then Jon was wiping his eyes with his sleeve and turning to Arya again. 

 

“Take care of them,” he said. “Take care of Bran and Sansa.”

 

Arya was crying again too. “I will,” she whispered. “And I’ll visit- you can’t stop me.”

 

Jon almost smiled again. “No one ever could.” He reached for his waist and began to unbuckle his sword, the Valyrian blade with the direwolf hilt. He pressed it into Arya’s hands. “I can’t take it,” he said. “I can’t take a blade that would kill my woman.”

 

He’d given her a sword the last time he’d left. He’d left her holding hope. Now she held grief, and ashes, and regret. 

 

“No,” Arya sobbed. Her eyes blurred with tears and she swiped them away. She would remember this. She would remember and tell everyone of the sacrifice that Ned’s hated bastard had made for the living. 

 

“Yes,” said Jon, pushing the sword against her chest. 

 

“Wait here,” said Arya. She dashed away, to Mikken’s old shop, and from beneath the forge she drew out a long, thin package. 

 

“Here,” she said, pressing Needle into Jon’s hand. “Don’t go unarmed- don’t go alone.”

 

Jon dropped the swords and grabbed Arya, hugging her to him. They cried on each other’s shoulders, cried like all hope was lost, and in so many ways, it was. 

 

Daenerys’ handmaiden and knight walked out of the great hall, their queen lying on a litter between them. She’d been washed and dressed; her hair rebraided. She was a queen, and she was going to a wedding. 

 

She was a queen, and she was going to a funeral. 

 

“You don’t need to do this,” said Jon, taking Daenerys’ limp hand. 

 

“I know,” she whispered. “But you would.”

 

Jon blinked long and hard, squeezing back tears. Arya didn’t even try to stop hers. 

 

The woman from Naarth and the knight from Bear Isle carried their queen through the gates of Winterfell. Jon walked beside his queen, and Arya and Jaime and the living residents of Winterfell followed after. 

 

A long path had been left from Winterfell’s gate to the Night King. He nodded to Jon as the party arrived, then turned his attention to Daenerys. “Welcome, sister,” he said, and laid his palm on her forehead. 

 

The effect was instantaneous. Daenerys’ already milk-white skin paled, turning translucent. Her lips turned blue, and her eyes deepened from violet to the darkest of indigoes. She sighed, long and deep, and continued to sigh, her eyelashes flickering, and then she breathed no more. 

 

She sat up slowly, and looked from her handmaiden to her knight. 

 

“Khaleesi,” her knight said softly, tears in his eyes. 

 

There were tears in everyone’s eyes. This wasn’t a story that could be hidden away, or shamed, or forgotten by the few who remembered it. This was a story of beginnings and endings, a time of war and peace, a time of life and death. 

 

“The balance is restored,” the Night King boomed. “Ice and Fire, Dead and Living. We will await you at the Wall.” He nodded, took Daenerys’ hand, and led her away into the dark. She looked back as she went, her eyes fading from indigo to blue, and then she was gone.

 

Jon was left standing by an empty litter, tears freezing in his beard. “I’ve got to go,” he said. “I have to.”

 

“I know,” said Arya on a half-swallowed sob. “I know. We’ll bring supplies; we’ll come, don’t worry.”

 

Someone brought Jon a horse, and he swung up, Arya’s little sword looking foolish at his side. “Goodbye,” he said, and then he was cantering into the night after his dead beloved. 

 

The snow faded, and the wind died away. Those who had watched Daenerys’ sacrifice stood silent, wondering how the fight for the living had ended so quietly, and with such little fanfare. Was this what their loved ones had died for?  _ Was this all there was?  _

 

People began to trickle back into the Keep, because what could they do? Life went on. Bellies needed to be filled, babies needed to be rocked, the old needed to be tended.  _ Life went on.  _

 

Arya and Jaime were the only ones left outside the keep when the darkness began to clear. The clouds had thinned, and in spots the sky had faded from deep, impenetrable black to navy, to charcoal, to lavender. Mourning colors- morning colors. 

 

“Sunset,” whispered Arya. 

 

“No,” said Jaime. “Sunrise.”

 

~~~

 

Arya listened numbly as the dead were tallied. Sandor and Brienne, most of the household guard. Too many people that Arya hadn’t known, and couldn’t properly mourn: she didn’t know their names. 

 

The war was over, and there was no rejoicing. Instead it was more confusion, more pain, more grief. 

 

Arya wished she was in the House of Black and White. Never had the fountain seemed more appealing- and yet… Jaime. 

 

He sat with her while she mechanically spooned broth into her mouth. He carried her to bed, ignoring his own pain to save her hers. He tucked her in, and held her, and when she cried, he did too. 

 

They slept the day away, waking again at sunset. Jaime fetched them food and still they didn’t talk. They ate and drank and slept again. 

 

Finally, twenty four hours after the dead had gone, taking Jon with them, Arya woke feeling like she might be able to speak without screaming or crying for death. It was cold in their room, as it always was, but Jaime was warm. 

 

He’d lived. They’d both lived. She’d asked him to come home, and he had. He’d  _ become  _ home. Home wasn’t one person, or one place, or one immutable set of feelings. Home was fluid, and she could love many people. Jaime was  _ pack.  _

 

“I love you,” she whispered into the frosty air, tasting the words on her tongue. She’d practice now, so that when she screwed up enough courage to actually tell Jaime, she wouldn’t choke on the words. 

 

His green eyes popped open, soft and clear as spring. “I love you, wolf-girl,” he said. “And here we are: alive past the end of the world.”

 

“I know,” said Arya softly, but her eyes were dry. “It’s a new world, now.”

 

“Will you spend it with me?” Jaime asked, drawing her closer. 

 

“ _ Yes.”  _

 

~~~

 

It took three days for supplies to be gathered for the Wall. Sansa found material for Daenerys, arguing that just because she was dead- or transformed, or whatever- there was no reason that she couldn’t have a dress. 

 

A few years ago- a few  _ weeks  _ ago- Arya would have found this an incredibly stupid thing to be worrying about. Material? For a  _ dress?  _

 

But now… it was humanity. Sansa was the best at being human, at remembering that people needed to eat, needed to be heard and hugged and tended. Daenerys had given up everything: her crown, her people, her  _ life,  _ and Sansa was taking her something of home. Something thoughtful. 

 

She might not only be the most human of the remaining Starks. She was probably the best of them. 

 

It took three weeks to get to the wall. The unnatural night of the Others had faded, but it was still winter, and huge drifts of snow made travel near impossible. Usually those of the North would remain in their castles and keeps for the winter, relying on their glass houses and supplies to keep them through to the thaw. These were strange times, and for the most part the group was able to follow the path already trampled by the retreating army of the dead. 

 

Once again Arya slept by Jaime’s side, and once more no one dared comment. They’d seen him fighting with his golden hand and the sword made of a fallen star. He’d been chosen by  _ something;  _ they didn’t care what. 

 

Every night in their shared tent Arya and Jaime talked, curled together between their furs. She told him in detail of her flight from Baelor’s Square, of how afraid she’d been the first few nights on the road with Yoren. She told him of the wonders of Braavos, of the Titan and the depths of the House of Black and White, the acrobats and the mummers and the fishermen, their skins burned chestnut brown. 

 

In his turn, Jaime told her of his life at Casterly Rock, of standing for hours outside Queen Rhaella’s door, of hearing the screams of burning men echoing in his head. He told her about being made Kingsguard, of fighting alongside Ser Arthur Dayne, and learning that Cersei was pregnant for the first time. 

 

“Do you want that?” Arya asked carefully. “Children?”

 

“Ah. No. I’m too old, wolf-girl and…”

 

Arya watched emotion flicker across Jaime’s face. She didn’t need to know the exact fear, but she could guess: he was too old to watch the wonder of children, too crippled to protect the vulnerable, too scared of making another Joffrey. 

 

“I don’t want children,” said Arya. Jaime didn’t make her explain, either. She didn’t need to say, “A child would be too vulnerable,” or “I would suddenly be too slow,” or “Let Sansa make the babies, I’ll protect them.”

 

The Wall, when they came to it, was beyond description. The day was overcast, and yet the little bit of light available reflected off the shining ice. The sea was smashing against the rocks of the north, and the rubble of the broken Wall lay on the plain below in glaciers the size of Winterfell. 

 

Jon and Daenerys had been waiting for them, standing high on the rubble where the Wall should have been. The Night King was with them in his crown of bone and ice. Those from Winterfell dismounted and walked towards the scene of destruction, their eyes trained on the white figure, the dark figure, the blueish figure. 

 

_ Light and dark and in between,  _ thought Arya.  _ Life and death, and those between. Balance,  _ thought Arya. The Faceless Men had been right again.  _ It was all about balance.  _

 

Silently, like the growing of the dawn, the Night King raised his hands above his head. The air shimmered, and between his fingers formed a crown of ice, spikes running along the top like trees, like a wall, like a mockery of the iron throne that Daenerys could never have. He placed it on her head and she nodded, her movements even more graceful than before, her face ever-placid. 

 

Jon was next, and he was not nearly as calm. Arya could see it in him: the anger, the fury, the self-loathing and regret. He was crowned in ice as well, ice as black as the White Walkers’ night, and at its peak a white wolf-head howled. 

 

This time Arya was dry-eyed. When the Other led Jon and Daenerys up slick steps carved into the ice of the Wall itself she squeezed Jaime’s fingers tightly, but she didn’t cry as Jon and his bride ascended further and further, eventually moving out of sight. Those from Winterfell remained still and quiet, waiting to see what would happen next. 

 

For a long while there was nothing: just the crash of the angry steel-colored sea and the screaming of the wind. It was the coldest Arya had ever been, and once more she mourned Jon’s fate. He wouldn’t even have a warm body to cuddle at night. 

 

_ I’ll remember what he did,  _ she said to herself.  _ And I’ll see everyone else remembers as well. The White Wolf’s sacrifice won’t be forgotten, not this time. The North remembers. It will  _ always  _ remember.  _

 

The magic began with a whisper on the breeze. This wasn’t the Night King’s voice, not again. This was the subtlest of sounds: pine needles rubbing together, sap beginning to run, the stirring of roots deep in the earth. The air began to shimmer again, stronger and stronger, until every instinct that Arya had was telling her to look away; that the face of a god was not something that any human eye should see. 

 

Arya watched anyway. She believed in no gods but death. 

 

It was like watching mountains grow from the earth. The ground trembled beneath Arya’s feet and slowly, inexorably, shards of ice ripped from  beneath the snow and began to climb into the sky, casting shadows longer than houses, longer than castles, longer seeming than the White Knife. It continued to rumble and grow into the sky, widening and darkening at it went, and when the ground danced so much that horses began to bolt and people began to cry it stopped; everything shuddering to a halt. 

 

The wall had been rebuilt. The treaty had been sealed in blood. Victory- even life- was bittersweet. 

 

_ “Do not forget, Starks,”  _ said the horrible voice of the Other, and then he too was gone. 

 

The remaining men of the Night’s Watch came forward, along with Sam and Bran. 

 

“We need to report the commander,” said one of the men. His face was narrow and his hair was already thinning, but his eyes were set and calm. Nobody who’d lived through this war was young. Age didn’t matter when you’d seen the dead come for all you loved. 

 

“I’m going with them,” said Bran.

 

“But-” said Arya. 

 

“Not to the Night’s Watch,” said Bran, his eyes vague again. “Beyond. I am the Three-Eyed Raven, and my heart tree is calling.”

 

“Are you stupid?” asked Arya. “No men are allowed beyond the wall, that was the whole  _ point!”  _

 

She could feel Jaime choking on laughter beside her, and she ignored him. She could sense that that would be happening quite a lot in the future.

 

Bran smiled, but didn’t look at her. “I’m not a man,” he said. “I’m the Three-Eyed Raven. The Others understand. They’ve seen me before.”

 

_ And then there were two,  _ Arya thought, watching Bran slide away, his sledge towed by two of the black Brothers. Arya and Sansa, and there the Stark line ended. 

 

Or so she thought. 

 

It was another three weeks back to Winterfell, and by then she’d noticed that things were going a little strangely for Sansa. She was green in the mornings, with little beads of sweat clinging to her forehead and upper lip, even in the bitter cold of a northern winter. She was sleeping in the saddle so much that she decided to ride in one of the wagons, and she was chewing ice like it was the most delicious of sweets. 

 

Arya didn’t know much  of anything about babies or pregnancy except how to avoid both, but when Sansa took her aside a few weeks after their return to Winterfell Arya had to feign surprise. 

 

“I’m pregnant,” Sansa whispered. They were in the far corner of Sansa’s warm chamber in the family wing, and Arya wondered about the secrecy. 

 

“Alright,” Arya whispered back. “Do you want it?”

 

Sansa blinked half a dozen times, seemingly flabbergasted by the question. 

 

“There are potions,” Arya began, not sure how Sansa had made it to the ripe old age of twenty without hearing of such things. 

 

“Of course I want him,” Sansa hissed, her face flushing. “But what will I tell people?”

 

“That his father died in the war?” suggested Arya. She wasn’t sure where this conversation was going, wasn’t sure why Sansa seemed so upset. If she wanted the baby she’d be happy, wouldn’t she?

 

“ _ We weren’t married!”  _ Sansa hissed. 

 

Oh. That. Right. 

 

“You could lie,” said Arya. It was obvious to  _ her,  _ but maybe Sansa wouldn’t see things that way. 

 

“No,” said Sana. 

 

“Alright,” said Arya, a little proud of how patient she was managing to be. “We won’t lie. Will you tell people who the father is?”

 

“Do I have to?” asked Sansa. 

 

“No,” said Arya. “Look, Sansa, you don’t ‘have’ to do anything every again. You’re the heir to Winterfell, the North is yours. If someone still tries to make you do something you don’t want to do, I’ll kill them.”

 

“That shouldn’t make me feel better,” said Sansa, her voice wry. “But it does.”

 

The sisters smiled at each other.  _ Secrets,  _ thought Arya again.  _ Maybe some secrets don’t have to be bad.  _

 

“I think you should tell people,” said Arya, her voice a little softer. “I think you’d do yourself, and the child, and Sandor a disservice if you kept the truth to yourself.”

 

Sansa gasped a little. “How did you know?” she asked. 

 

“I watched the two of you,” she said. “How you smiled at his curses, how he watched you when you weren’t looking.”

 

“He saved me,” said Sansa, and for a moment she sounded like herself back when she’d been ten and four and they’d both been innocent. “Twice, in King’s Landing. He was my only friend, and- he kissed me-”

 

“I traveled with him,” said Arya when Sansa trailed off. “For about six months, before I sailed east to Braavos. He was good to me,” she said. “He protected me, too.”

 

“What happened?” Sansa asked. They were still huddled in the far corner of Sansa’s chamber, and they were still whispering like toddlers hatching a plot. 

 

_ Telling Sansa that I left Sandor for dead on the side of a hill isn’t the conversation to have right now,  _ Arya thought. “Another time,” she said instead. 

 

“But- Arya-”

 

Something was still on Sansa’s mind. 

 

“This baby will be a  _ Snow,  _ and there must always be a Stark in Winterfell!”

 

“Then it’s a Stark,” said Arya. She could feel the end of her patience fast approaching. 

 

“That isn’t how it works-” Sansa began doubtfully, but Arya cut her off. 

 

“Look,” she said. “We survived the end of the world. Half the population of Westeros is dead, Others rode, the Wall fell, and dragons died. Most of the great Houses are extinct, and the remaining members are mostly bastards and cripples and dwarves. We can rewrite the rules, Sansa, we can rewrite  _ all of it.  _

 

“What was it Maester Luwin used to say?  _ History is recorded by the victors.  _ We’re the victors, Sansa. We can make this world anything we want if we’re brave enough. Give this babe your name,  _ our name,  _ and refuse to feel shame over it. If you feel no shame, nobody can use it against you.”

 

Sansa nodded slowly. “I’ll do it,” she said. “You’re right.” She smiled over at her sister. “You’ve always been the brave one.” 

 

Arya shook her head. “You’re brave too,” she said eventually. “You have the bravery to endure.”

 

Endure Sansa did. Those first weeks back in Winterfell were chaos; so many soldiers had died and been buried in snow that it took seemingly forever to determine who was living and who had fallen to the army of wights. Everyone was organized and shuffled inside of the keep, and eight weeks after the dead has first come the discussion as to what should happen to Westeros began in earnest. 

 

Arya learned that the players were Ser Davos, the Onion Knight, Hand of Stannis Baratheon and Jon Snow. Missandei was Daenerys’ former handmaid and translator. Grey Worm was Missandei’s… something, and the leader of the Unsullied forces. They knew and trusted Tyrion. Arianne Martell was there as well; she’d originally come with Daenerys’ attendants. Arya wondered how Daenerys had managed to strike  _ that  _ truce. 

 

Gendry sat with Davos, comfortable with the other low-born man. Arya had spent a few hours with Gendry up on the walls, laughing about all they’d seen and learning what adventures the other had been on. It was sweet: gone were the children who’d loved each other, and in their place sat a man and a woman who’d never regain all that they’d lost. They were friends; soldiers who’d fought in their first real battle together. They’d been forged together in the bloodbath that had been Harrenhal, and distance hadn’t ripped that apart. 

 

Podrick was alive, and he sat between Tyrion and Sansa, quiet and calm and reliable. He fascinated Arya: he had to be twenty, and yet he’d never chafed at still being a squire, just as he’d never complained about squiring for a lady knight. 

 

A Dothraki screamer had been voted into the room. He paced off to the side, and Missandei translated for him. 

 

Lords Manderly had survived the war as well, and he’d been annoyed that Sansa wouldn’t take his council in this decision-making process. 

 

“I respect your opinions,” said Sansa. “But you haven’t been south of the Red Ford. You haven’t seen how this kingdom was ruined, and you don’t know the truth of the games that were played. 

 

“And you do?” Lord Manderly had growled. 

 

“Yes,” said Sansa sweetly. “I do.”

 

Arya had been impressed. 

 

Now, at the first gathering of the remaining players in Westeros, everyone sat stiff and silent. 

 

“I’ve had this nightmare before,” said Tyrion, breaking the oppressive quiet of the room. “But I was naked, and my father kept trying to stick the Hand pin into my flesh.”

 

Gendry chuckled, Missandei rolled her eyes, and Sansa just sighed. 

 

At that point the door opened and a slightly weathered knight wandered in. He nodded to Tyrion and Jaime before taking a chair next to Podrick. “Look at us and the fancy folks,” he said in a stage whisper. 

 

“So,” Tyrion continued as though they hadn’t been interrupted. “Who will put us all back together?”

 

Everyone looked around at each other. In the back, the Dothraki man rattled off something, harsh and guttural. 

 

“The Dothraki wish to return home,” said Missandei. “They demand boats to transport them back to their sea.”

 

“We have no boats,” said Davos. “The dragons got ‘em, or the Greyjoys.”

 

Missandei translated, and the Dothraki man glared. 

 

“Nobody holds the Reach,” said Jaime. “The plains there might resemble the Dothraki sea enough to keep them content while a fleet is built?”

 

“We can’t pass the Reach over into Dothraki hands,” said Arianne. “They do not speak our language, they do not grow grain, they do nothing but rape and loot.”

 

“We have no boats!” Davos repeated. 

 

Wisely, Missandei elected not to translate all this. 

 

“They’d likely be happy in Dorne,” said Tyrion. “Are you volunteering to host them?” 

 

Arianne pressed her lips tightly together. 

 

“That could work,” said Tyrion. “They’d enjoy your horses.”

 

“You pledged yourself to Daenerys,” said Missandei to Arianne. “And so did the Dothraki. The Queen gave herself up for all of us; we should support her wishes where we can. I will also go to Dorne, and I will translate for you there.”

 

“Do you speak Rohynish?” asked Arianne, all venom. 

 

“Yes,” said Missandei serenely. 

 

Davos beamed at her. 

 

“Wonderful!” said Tyrion. “Only six more kingdoms to go.”

 

“The North is its own,” said Sansa. “ _ Its. own.”  _

 

“See?” said Tyrion. “It’s been twenty minutes and already we’re down to five Kingdoms and one iron throne to sort out.”

 

Jaime and Arya glanced at each other, green eyes meeting grey, and then Jaime turned to his brother. 

 

“We should melt that thing down and toss it in the sea,” he said. “It’s meant nothing but blood from the beginning.”

 

Everyone looked at Jaime, wide- eyed. 

 

“I told the soldiers I don’t want to rule, and that’s true. Everyone who wanted to rule is dead; everyone who had to declare themselves the rightful goddamn king is dead. If we were the seven kingdoms again we would be forced to work together, to trade, to be allies. The only thing that’s united us for the last two hundred years was fear of whatever arse sat the throne.”

 

Davos was nodding, Sansa looked intrigued, and Tyrion was grinning. “Brilliant,” he said. “I had a speech all prepared, but Jaime beat me to it. Good work, brother.”

 

Jaime sighed. 

 

The arguments went on. Tyrion pointed out that the Night’s Watch voted on their next Lord Commander, and Davos replied that most smallfolk would ignore a vote, or agree that all the old House members needed to be executed and tossed in the sea. 

 

Arya couldn’t really disagree with that assessment. 

 

In the end it was agreed that Davos and Gendry would rule the Crowlands and Stormlands with Gendry acting as Davos’ heir. Tyrion would return to the Westerlands, Asha would rule the Iron Islands (if she could take them), and the Martells would remain in Dorne. Sansa and Arya would rule together in the north, and one of the young Manderlys would be sent to rule the Veil on behalf of Robyn. 

 

At one point Tyrion turned to Missandei and Grey Worm. “Do you know anything about farming?” he asked them. 

 

“No,” said Grey Worm. Arya wanted to know how he’d gotten that name. 

 

“A little,” said Missandei. “But only from books and - ah- diplomatic conversation.”

 

_ Translating for other men,  _ thought Arya. 

 

“Would you like a castle?” asked Tyrion. 

 

Grey Worm began to smile, gradually at first, and then a shockingly white grin. “Yes,” he said. “We would like a castle.”

 

Missandei snapped her head around to look at him, and then blushed at Tyrion. “I think we would,” she agreed. 

 

Tyrion nodded and looked at Arianne. “Looks like you’re going to have to learn Dothraki after all,” he said. 

 

“I’d just like to remind both of  the Lannisters in the room that I am owed one castle,” said Bronn. “Don’t make me say the stupid motto.”

 

“A Lannister always-” said Tyrion, and Bronn, who had been rocked back in his chair, brought the front legs down with a thump. 

 

“Don’t you fucking say it,” he said, shaking his thin cigar in Tyrion’s direction. 

 

“How would the Riverlands suit you?” asked Tyrion, scribbling manically on a piece of parchment. “Lots of fish in the rivers, and I hear there’s currently a surplus of redheaded women.”

 

“I like redheads,” said Bronn. “Put me down for that.” Next to him, Podrick was still blushing. 

 

In the end, it was easy enough to divvy up the Kingdoms. It was much harder to write a common law that would rule them. 

 

“You can’t invade another kingdom,” Tyrion explained to Bronn. “Because then the others would be obligated to ride to war against you. This only works if we all  _ work together.” _

 

“What if the other fellow invades me first?”

 

“Then the rest of the kingdoms would go to war with  _ him.” _

 

Trade agreements were tentatively arranged. Boundaries were finalized. And ethics were discussed. 

 

“No more bastards,” Sansa declared. 

 

Everyone looked at her. 

 

“It’s stupid to blame the baby,” said Sansa, and Arya heroically kept her eyes from drifting to Sansa’s still-flat stomach. “And it’s stupid to make the children the man’s property, when he’s involved for a few minutes at most.”

 

Bronn banged on the table in agreement, Arianne drawled that Dorne had always done that, and Missandei looked amused. In the end, the line about bastards went on the proposed lists of laws. 

 

“What if two Kingdoms disagree?” Podrick asked. 

 

Tyrion looked thoughtful. “We need someone to go around and be the dealbreaker. To look to the good of Westeros as a whole.”

 

“Jaime,” said Arya immediately. She hadn’t chimed in until now; it wasn’t her place. She knew nearly everything there was to know about fighting and death. She didn’t have the slightest idea how to rule. 

 

“He stood outside nearly twenty years worth of Small Council meetings. He doesn’t want to rule, and he’s spent most of his adult life riding around Westeros.” 

 

Davos looked thoughtful. “He’d work. What would we call him?”

 

“King’s Justice is already taken,” said Bronn cheerfully.

 

“Who is this?” asked Grey Worm. 

 

“The executioner.”

 

Grey Worm scoffed. “Death is not justice.”

 

“Ambassador?” suggested Tyrion. 

 

“We haven’t asked if the man will do it yet,” said Davos. 

 

Everyone turned to Jaime, and Jaime turned to her. “I’d have to travel,” he said. “And we’d always have ravens coming and going.”

 

“I can ride,” said Arya placidly, trying not to let hope show. Every day she felt less and less Faceless, and everyday she felt more and more whole. She wanted this for Jaime. He still worried that he didn’t have any purpose without his hand, and he couldn’t be more wrong. 

 

Jaime was clever and intelligent and loyal and stubborn and  _ good.  _

 

He was hers, and she loved him. 

 

“We’ll do it,” said Jaime. “Two for one.”

 

In the end they decided to call him the Keeper of the King’s Peace.

 

“What king?” Bronn had asked. 

 

“All of them,” said Jaime. “And none.” 

 

“We could make you a pin,” Tyrion offered, running a fingertip over the Hand badge he still wore. “Handy things, pins.”

 

Jaime declined the offer, and Arya wondered if he was tired of people seeing the cloak or insignia or badge he wore as opposed to just seeing… him.

 

~~~

 

Winter broke after only six months, and nobody trusted the weather to be true. False springs had been recorded before, and no one could know that this was the start of a new pattern. How could they predict that as magic faded from the land once more, and as the Night King’s treaty was upheld, seasons would cycle annually as opposed to every decade or so? 

 

Sansa’s baby was born in the spring. He had red hair and grey eyes, and Sansa named him Cathal. “For the man who ended the last Long Night,” she said while still in her birthing bed. Arya had been there for the whole bloody ordeal, and when it was time for her to pack her saddlebags to ride south with Jaime and the other men, she took along a year’s worth of moon tea. 

 

Jaime thought it was funny, the bastard. 

 

“You were greener than she was,” he teased when Arya walked out of Sansa’s chambers. 

 

As snow melted and ice thinned over rivers, the army of the south prepared to  march again. They only had a tenth of their original numbers, but they were alive and the land was thawing. It was a time to celebrate. The night before Arya and Jaime were due to ride with them, he found her in the godswood. 

 

She was kneeling by the still pond, remembering another fountain that she’d spent so much time studying. She knew he was behind her- she was the flower that followed his light: she knew his scent, his footstep, the way he breathed, the rhythm of his heartbeat. 

 

“We don’t need to go,” he said. “We can wait, if you wish-”

 

Arya rose and went to him, tugging him down for a kiss. “I’m ready to go,” she said. 

 

Jaime looked at her, his beloved green eyes wary. “I don’t want you to feel obligated to me, wolf-girl,” he said gently. “You’re yours, no matter what I may say. If you want to stay with your sister, I’ll come home.”

 

_ Home,  _ Arya thought, glancing around at her ancestral godswood. What a cold place this would be without Jaime. 

 

“You’re my home,” she said, taking his hand in hers. “Where you go, I’ll go. Where you fight, I’ll fight. You’re home, Jaime, and I’m not leaving now that I’ve found you. You’re pack.” Arya had spent the bitter winter months practicing telling him her secrets and feelings and thoughts, but it still felt a little bit embarrassing and a little bit terrifying to pass her heart so fully into his hands. 

 

The corner of Jaime’s mouth twitched, and Arya’s heart fluttered.

 

“Careful, pup,” he said. “Those are sounding an awful lot like vows.” 

 

“I’m not in a maiden cloak,” she pointed out with a grin. Then in a stage whisper she added, “I don’t know if you’ve heard, but rumor has it that I’m no maiden.”

 

Jaime was smiling fully now, too. “I had heard something of the sort,” he said. “Didn’t some musty old text mentioning the wolf lying down with the lion?”

 

“That was ‘lamb’,” said Arya. “Very different.”

 

“You’re right,” said Jaime. He was in his leathers, complete with his sword, and despite his greying hair (possibly  _ because  _ of his greying hair, but Arya wouldn’t go there) he looked beautiful and ferocious and human. 

 

“You can’t ride south with that,” she said, gesturing to the sword. “All great swords have names.”

 

“About that,” said Jaime. He unbuckled the sword and passed it to Arya, and for a moment she remembered the elation and the suffocating grief of the last person who had handed her a sword like this. “I was thinking you should take it.”

 

“No,” said Arya, pushing it back at him. “This is your sword, Jaime.”

 

He didn’t take it, and he wasn’t smiling anymore. “It isn’t,” he said. “And it never was. It was made from your father’s sword, Arya. It was always meant to be here in the North. I was only delivering it.”

 

This was her father’s sword, recast in Lannister gold. How dare Tywin? How  _ dare he?  _

 

But- this was also  _ them,  _ her and Jaime, north and south together as one, something new and beautiful and unique. 

 

“It’s your sword,” she said finally, pulling her gaze off the blade and meeting Jaime’s eyes again. “But I’ll name it for you.”

 

“What did you have in mind?” he asked. 

 

“Honor.”

 

Jaime blinked at her, then began to shake his head. 

 

“You carry it with you,” she said. “And you always have. Carry Honor, Jaime, and be proud.”

 

He looked down at the sword and up at her, and then tossed it away. “I fucking love you,” he said as he wrapped his arm around her waist and captured her chin with his fingers, kissing her roughly. “I really fucking do.”

 

“I know,” said Arya, fumbling at the laces of his pants. “I love you too.”

 

It was almost as violent as their coupling had been in the First Keep. Jaime was practiced in making a girl orgasm quickly, just as he was used to having sex in unconventional locations. He dragged them both to the ground and set his back to a weirwood tree. 

 

Arya unlaced her own breeches, and as soon as they were loose Jaime’s fingers were inside, stroking and circling and toying with her. 

 

“I love this,” he said, pinching her clit. “I love that despite all the things you’ve done, I’m the only man that’s been here. If that makes me stupid, we can tack that title onto all the others.”

 

“I like it too,” said Arya, freeing Jaime’s cock from his trousers. He shuddered as her fingers grazed teasingly over his balls (how Arya loved  _ that  _ feeling of power), and then they were pleasuring each other in time. 

 

“Jaime,” Arya panted, her hips rocking into his hand, seeking  _ more  _ and not finding it. “I want-”

 

“I know what you want, pup,” he said, sliding his hand from her folds. “C’mon.”

 

Arya slid home and thought that she’d never get used to that very first thrust, that sensation of having gone from painfully empty to delightfully full. 

 

Jaime’s good left hand hooked onto her left shoulder, his arm spanning across her back, anchoring her to him. “Fuck me, wolf girl,” he growled. 

 

She did. She howled when he bit her, sinking his teeth into the curve of her shoulder, and when he skimmed his lips down to worry a nipple she could feel herself going slick and wet around him; dampness on both their thighs. 

 

“I’ve said ‘fuck the gods’ before,” said Jaime, shoving his hand between Arya’s thighs to toy with her nub. “And I’ll say it again, but if the gods are real-” 

 

He bucked up into Arya, making her groan and rest her forehead in the sweaty shadow of his throat-

 

“-I hope they’re watching,” he rasped, and Arya fell into bliss in his arms. 

 

Moments later, as the sweat began to cool on their bodies and Jaime’s cock began to soften in Arya’s cunt, he pressed a kiss to the top of Arya’s head. “Are we married now?” he asked. 

 

Arya began to laugh. “Quite possibly,” she said. “You didn’t wrap me in your cloak, though, and no one stood witness.”

 

She felt married. It felt transformative, different. She’d leave here more his than she’d been when she came, and yet she’d also walk out of the godswood more free. Love was funny that way. 

 

“I’m glad there weren’t any witnesses,” he said. “I was already held prisoner by one set of Starks, and I can’t say I’m too keen on repeating the experience.”

 

Arya kissed him to shut him up, and the kiss tasted like joy. 

 

“Do you want to get married?” he asked as she laced his breeches up again.

 

“No,” said Arya, picking up Honor and passing Jaime the sword. “As far as I’m concerned, I already am.”

 

He kissed her again, and this time her back was to the tree and he was pulling on her hair so tightly her scalp stung, and she was thinking she was going to have to go for his trousers  _ again _ when he pressed a kiss to the end of her nose and stepped away. “You’ll be the death of me, wolf-girl.”

 

“I love you,” he whispered to her again as they left the godswood.

 

“And I love you,” she whispered back. 

 

#  Coda: 

 

When they rode south Arya wore Brienne’s blade, Oathkeeper, the other sword made from Ice. Jaime rode Redemption and carried Honor, and if that wasn’t worthy of a song, Arya wasn’t sure what was. 

 

The kingdoms broke apart, and the kingdoms knew peace. Farms prospered, children were born who had never known hunger or war, and Jaime and Arya went from House to House, helping to create laws and broker treaties. They occasionally killed bandits, which Arya said kept things interesting. 

 

Arya and Jaime were there to watch the iron throne smash into the sea beneath King’s Landing. No one had been able to decide what should happen to it; on that topic there seemed to be no compromise. 

 

It was the first order that Jaime ever gave as King’s Peace:  _ Throw it into the sea!  _ he’d yelled, and together Arya and Jaime and Davos and Gendry had dragged the monstrous chair through the Red Keep and over the side of the cliffs. 

 

“Iron doesn’t like the sea,” said Gendry as they watched the waves below. “Salt water eats right through it.”

 

_ Good,  _ Arya thought. The Throne had been forged in fire and blood. Let salt and water rend it apart. 

 

Soon enough whispers about the Kingslayer stopped, and rumors about Goldenhand began to fly. When Jaime first heard a song that mentioned his title he winced and Arya laughed. “Be thankful it’s flattery,” she said, and that night Jaime tied her arms above her head and had her begging him for release. Who said revenge was best served cold?

 

Westeros prospered, and a new generation was raised. The new rulers of the kingdoms needed Jaime less and less, for they were growing into their own as kings and queens and players in this new, more benevolent Game. Arya and Jaime were able to stay longer in Winterfell, where Jaime became the most requested nursemaid the keep had ever seen. 

 

“I don’t know why they like you so much,” Arya groused as Sansa’s third child, Cat, grabbed for Jaime’s nose. 

 

“Because I’m prettier,” he suggested, cooing to the child. Arya just rolled her eyes. 

 

Life went on, as life always does, and Longclaw hung over the Great Hall of Winterfell, the blade sharp and every-ready. At least once a year Arya and Jaime would visit Jon at the Wall.  He was older too, and tired, though Daenerys hadn’t changed a day. She recognized and knew her visitors, but every year she talked less and less. 

 

“She’ll leave me, one day soon,” said Jon matter of factly. 

 

“But-” said Arya. 

 

“She will,” he said, and he sounded resigned. “She’ll never die, Arya. I will. My knees hurt when I have to climb all the way up the Wall,  and I’ve more grey in my hair than black.”

 

“Then you can come home,” said Arya.  _ Come home where it’s warm _ , she wanted to cry.  _ Come home where we love you _ .

 

“We’ll see,” said Jon. 

 

He didn’t come home. Cathal was ruling Winterfell when the raven came announcing Jon’s death and the election of a new Lord Commander. Arya and Jaime mounted up once more, this time to travel through the kingdoms reminding everyone who lived that their lives were owed to Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen; that when the ultimate sacrifice had to be made, there was a King and a Queen who had made it. 

 

Songs were sung, and histories were written. 

 

It was the last Grand Tour Jaime and Arya made. After that they were content to stay home, holding hands by the hearth, and watching the seasons change. 

 

~~~

 

One morning, when Arya was grey and old, she woke to find Jaime cold beside her, gone in his sleep. After burying him in the crypts (over Sansa’s hollow protests, for Sansa had learned to love him too), Arya made one last trip south, riding though King’s Landing, right to the threshold of the abandoned White Sword Tower. Up she climbed, up and up, her knees creaking on the stairs, until she made it to the door, a door no woman had been allowed to enter.

Inside was a dust covered book on a round table, its cover faded and grey. All the knights of lore were here, knights of summer, of a time that hadn’t seen the dead walking. Arya slowly turned the pages, the knuckles of her swordhand stiff and gnarled. Finally she found the page she sought: Jaime Lannister, the youngest man to be made Kingsguard, the only Kingsguard member to ever kill his king. 

 

Slowly Arya pulled a vial of ink and a quill from her bag and began to write. She wrote, carefully and neatly, as light filtered through dust-covered windows, all of the deeds of the Last Lion. She wrote of his war, of the diplomacy he’d learned, of the vanity he’d shed. As the light faded she added another sheet, for her man would not be remembered by history for the one beautiful, impulsive act he’d made in his youth. He would be known as a man who grew great despite himself, despite his family, despite it all. 

Before she left Arya looked through washed-pale eyes at the bit of blank parchment at the bottom of the page. There she wrote, in careful script:  _ Goldenhand the Just, beloved by all who remember him _ . 

 

**THE END**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello my loves- we did it! We made it to the end. Thank you, each and every one of you, for reading this story. I don't know about that whole "Does a tree that falls with no one around make a noise?" nonsense, but I do think that art is a two-way street. It's meant to be shared: **thank you for sharing this with me.**
> 
> Only a few more months until the last season comes out! I'd love to have someone with whom to scream about it, so please come find me on twitter [@caseydoesfandom](https://twitter.com/caseydoesfandom). I really don't give a rat's ass if you follow me, but we could always cry over all the (inevitable) deaths together! 
> 
> I'm going to miss you! Thanks for coming on this journey with me. 
> 
> <3 Casey


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